by E. Joan Sims
I loved this place. All the love and sweat and joy of four generations of our family had gone into planting and building and caring for this house and the land on which it sat. How could I ever have put us in danger of losing it? I knew the ghost of my father and grandfather hovered very near. They would help me find a way out of this mess. Or haunt me forever.
I jumped ten feet when the phone rang. It was Cassie.
“Mom, something is wrong. I can tell. All day long I’ve had the most awful feeling of gloom and doom.”
She kept on talking, not giving me a chance to respond. “Don’t try and spare me. I’m all grown-up now. You have to let me share in some of the responsibility.”
Like an idiot, I started laughing.
She was very quiet for about a dollar’s worth of overseas call. I had to start counting my pennies now.
“I guess I better go, I can see that you think I’m very funny, just a silly little girl who.…”
“Cassandra, darling,” I interrupted, “you’re not silly at all. As a matter of fact you are amazing. You know me, my wires are all crossed. I cry for happy and laugh when the world is coming to an end.”
“Something really has happened, then. Is Gran all right?”
“Tired and worried, but so far, fine.” I assured her.
Her voice was very soft over the transatlantic airwaves. “What happened, Mom?”
And so I told her, my grownup daughter, what the fates had allowed.
“I’m coming home tomorrow. I’ll call from New York and let you know when my plane gets to Nashville. Can you meet me, or if not maybe Danny, ummm, better still, Horatio?”
“I’ll be there. I’ve nothing to do here but wait by the phone, anyway.”
“Great! Bring Aggie. I can’t wait to see her.”
“What about David? Will he be all right with this?”
“Well, if he were here, he’d better be, but I left him poking around some early Roman ruins in Arles three weeks ago. I’m in Aix now, in the sweetest little hostel.”
“But alone, Cassie?”
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m perfectly safe. I’m surrounded by friends, Joelly, Colette, Bruin.…”
“Bruin?”
“Okay, Mom, quit being a mom. Take care of yourself and hold down the fort until I get there. We’ll think of something. And remember, there’s generations of Sterlings hovering over Meadowdale Farm. They’ll keep us from harm!”
I hung up and shrugged off the goose bumps. Funny she and I would be thinking of ghostly help. Funny, indeed, that she called in the first place. “Gloom and doom all day,” huh? Well, stranger things have happened. I didn’t want to delve into the “why” very deeply. My heart was ten pounds lighter. I felt optimism oozing back into all my atoms, and I was starving.
Cassie called back at eight the next morning from La Guardia. She sounded tired but happy to be back in the US of A. She had managed to catch a night flight from Paris and would arrive in Nashville a little after two in the afternoon central time.
Mother almost looked her old self again at breakfast. When I told her that Cassie was coming home she really perked up.
“I wonder how in the world she knew?” she asked.
“I don’t even want to think about it. We have too much to worry about in the normal world to worry about the paranormal.”
I munched a corner of toast smeared with orange marmalade.
“She wants us to bring Aggie.”
“Oh, dear, I’m afraid a trip in the car might interrupt her perpetual nap.”
The dog had done nothing but eat and sleep all summer. Her hair was too long and thick for her to be comfortable outside, and staying in the house had made her lazy.
I hugged Mother happily and crumbled her toast in the process.
“I know I’m not supposed to let my world revolve around Cassie, but, damn, I’m glad she’s coming home. Maybe she can help us think of a way out of this mess.”
Mother was calm and steady now. Every hair was in place and her nose was powdered.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Paisley. I thought about this all night and I can’t see any way out. I called my lawyer early this morning, Bruce Hawkins. You may not remember him. He graduated two years ahead of you.”
I did remember him. I had a crush on him my entire sophomore year.
“Maybe we should make an appointment, go see him?”
“I did just that. He can see us tomorrow morning at eight, before he has to go to court. Anyway, as I was saying.…”
“Sorry.”
“I explained briefly what our problem was and he seems to think they have us dead to rights.”
“Well, at least he may be able to think of a way to protect the farm,” I suggested hopefully.
“That’s true. I hadn’t thought of that. Well, then, let’s try and keep our chins up. As Grandpa used to say, ‘It ain’t over till it’s over.’”
Aggie behaved beautifully on the way to the airport and slept in the backseat in the crook of her mistress’s comatose body on the way back. Cassie had given us each a quick hug and a kiss. She helped us find her luggage from the revolving rack in baggage claim and then crawled into the back of Watson and fell promptly asleep.
I didn’t mind a bit. She was home—thinner, taller, more beautiful, and infinitely welcome.
Her nap on the two hour trip home did not even scratch the surface of her exhaustion. She barely made it from the car to her bed before she was out again. Aggie followed her mistress with a big doggie grin on her face and curled up next to her. A dog’s work is never done.
I spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking smelly jeans and socks from a thoroughly disgusting duffle bag. Finally, after washing and rewashing several loads of “backpacking thru France with no laundry available” clothes, the smells of sweat, old wine, and goat cheese were gone. I had to go out for fresh air twice. I wondered briefly how anyone who looked like Cassie could get so dirty until I remembered certain full and soggy diapers from her past.
Mother invited us out to dinner to celebrate Cassie’s return to the fold. I objected on the grounds that we would be living completely off of her income until this thing was resolved, so we could not afford to be extravagant.
“We must think like the White Russian émigrés from the revolution,” she countered.
“The who from the what?” asked Cassie.
Mother sighed sadly. “What do they teach young people in school nowadays? I have no time to explain, Cassie, dear. I’m hungry. Read your history.”
I interrupted to keep a fight from starting. “What your grandmother is trying to say, Cassie, is if you act poorly, dress poorly, in any way give in to poverty, then the bastards will have won. So put on your party clothes and let’s eat, drink, and be merry! As long as we go to the Dairy Queen.”
“Hooray! That, I understand. For six long weeks I have been craving American cuisine. Cheeseburger, onion rings, and fries, here we come.”
I let Cassie sleep late the next morning since there was no reason for her to go with us to the lawyer’s office. But I couldn’t resist peeking into her room just I had when she was a baby to make sure she was all right. When I opened the door I heard a soft snore but it stopped suddenly and a fuzzy little head peered up over Cassie’s hip. Cassie slept on and the puppy nuzzled back down in the sheets. Ah, pure happiness! I envied that silly mutt. Nothing to worry about but where her next meal was coming from and how much attention she could get from her mistress. I had that to worry about, plus!
I loved Bruce’s office. If we were not on such a worrisome mission I would have really enjoyed my visit. He had bought the old Capitol Theater, left the outside marquee the same except for new paint, and remodeled the inside. He designed a reception room, a suite of offices and a cozy conference room in the former theater auditorium. That’s where we were escorted by his pleasant, slightly dotty, middle-aged secretary.
The conference room was paneled in a dark polished walnut that m
atched the big table and the small desk in the corner. The rest of the offices and the reception area were decorated with bright colorful art deco designs in keeping with the original theater.
Old movie posters from the thirties, forties, and early fifties were hanging on every wall. I checked out the two of the posters behind me and saw that they bore the autographs of the original stars. The Casbah was signed, “Best Wishes, Hedy Lamarr!” and The Naked Jungle poster had Eleanor Parker’s signature, “With Love.”
When I was a kid I used to go to the Capitol every Saturday afternoon to see a double feature and a serial short subject. Tim Tyler’s Luck was my favorite. I guess Bruce had been an even bigger fan. There was a picture of Tim’s jungle cruiser next to Miss Lamarr.
I turned to Mother. “Gosh! This is a wonderful place.”
“Thank you very much.”
The strong, well-modulated voice that came from behind my chair startled me.
I turned and saw Bruce Hawkins step through a hidden doorway cut cleverly in the wooden paneling.
He smiled and apologized. “Too many old horror movies, I guess. My private office is on the other side and I just couldn’t resist the secret passage.” He stepped forward and shook my hand. “You must be Paisley DeLeon. I should remember you from high school. Mrs. Sterling tells me we were only two years apart, but I’m sorry.…”
“Never mind,” I interrupted, embarrassed for us both.
His handshake was warm and just strong enough. I hated men who gave you a death grip just to prove their masculinity or their sincerity. They were usually lacking in both.
“Morning, Mrs. Sterling,” he said with a courtly inclination of his head as he took a seat across from us at the table. He brought a yellow legal pad with him, and took a minute to write our names and the date at the top of the first page.
“Mrs. Sterling,” he began, “if I understood you correctly when we spoke, your daughter has written a successful crime novel. It’s based on the premise that a neighbor murdered your cousin and her husband in order to procure their fortune, is that correct?”
“Yes, it is,” responded Mother, primly.
“And the book is entitled The Neighbor from Hell?”
“Yes.”
I felt like saying, “Yoo-hoo, I’m here,” but I realized that Mother was actually his client. Maybe that was why he had seen us without any mention of a retainer. I kept my mouth shut until he directed a question at me.
“Where did you get the idea that Ernest Dibber is a murderer, Mrs. DeLeon?”
“Well, I can’t remember exactly when or where.”
There was no sense in incriminating my own mother right off the bat.
“But,” I continued, “it does seem a logical assumption when you think about the fact that he was the only one who knew about my cousin’s assets.”
He smiled just a trifle condescendingly. “You forget we are talking about a novel—fiction, or supposedly so. And besides, there were others who had to have known, bank personnel for instance, secretaries, clerks, his lawyer. Lawyers are not above the law.”
He laughed at his own joke.
I was getting miffed, high school crush be damned. “The lawyer who wrote William’s and Abigail’s original will died several years ago. Dibber’s own lawyer wrote up the new will for William to sign while he was in the hospital,” I huffed.
He made a pencil mark through a line on the pad and said almost to himself, “Ummm. He was very sure of the situation, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he was. And on top of everything else, his wife was a nurse on William’s floor in the hospital so she could document in the medical record…a legal instrument if I’m not mistaken?”
“Correct,” he affirmed.
“She could document that William was of sound mind. He knew who and where he was, and what the date and time were. Ernest made a big point of telling us that himself at the funeral.”
“That’s interesting,” he raised his eyebrows.
“That was odd, if you ask me,” offered Mother.
He put the pencil down and sat back in the chair and stretched his arms over his head. He was wearing a blue shirt with tiny white stripes and a beautiful silk tie in a darker blue. Either he or his wife had excellent taste.
“I’m forgetting my manners. Would you all like coffee, tea?”
He reached under the table and pushed something. I halfway expected the desk in the corner to revolve and produce a buffet with a coffee service. Instead, his secretary appeared in the doorway with a big silver tray. He jumped up, helped her set it in the middle of the table, and poured the coffee himself.
“Thank you, Matilda,” he said to the unsmiling woman’s back as she left the room. “Cream and sugar?”
I sat and watched him pour and stir. I could not decide if I liked him or not. Ultimately, of course, that did not matter; his advice was what we were interested in, not his personality.
“Thank you, Bruce. The coffee’s delicious. Just what we needed, right, Paisley?”
I nodded.
“My aunt, she’s my secretary, takes very good care of me.”
He smiled somewhat ruefully and I decided I liked him after all. Auntie Matilda was probably a pain in the butt.
“Paisley, do you really think that Ernest Dibber killed your cousin?”
“No, of course not,” I sputtered.
“That’s not what your book says, though, is it?”
“My book does not say Ernest Dibber killed William and Abigail!”
“But in your book, a man and his wife very much like your cousins are murdered by a man very much like their neighbor. Is that not true?”
“Well, yes.” I admitted grudgingly.
“And he is a bookkeeper at the bank and she is a nurse, and they have five grown children and live in a small mining community?”
“Yes,” I had to admit that, too.
“And in your book, your victim has a minor heart attack and ends up in the hospital on the same floor as the neighbor’s wife, right?” He went on, “And after the victim signs a new will leaving the neighbor his entire estate the neighbor smothers him with a pillow. He then gets his wife to state in the medical record that he has had another heart attack and died, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I would sue you, too.”
My voice sounded small and tinny, “Really?”
“Look, Paisley, I read your book last night after talking to your mother, great book by the way. Anyway, you and your co-author should have changed things a bit more. You should have switched the characters around, made the man a nurse, the wife the murderer. These people really have grounds for their suit. They probably will be terribly embarrassed in their community. That’s something the judge will take into consideration. Do you or Leonard have any professional insurance?”
“There is no” Leonard.” I’m me. I mean, I’m Paisley and Leonard, and no, I don’t have any insurance. I wrote children’s books before, mostly about crickets and mice, and they rarely sue.”
I tried to smile but my mouth wouldn’t work.
“Well, then I guess you’d better prepare for the worst. I can’t really help you with this. I’m small potatoes, a farmer’s lawyer. I write a great will and help with estate planning and deeds, that kind of thing. I’m afraid you need somebody a lot more experienced in publishing law to get you through this. I can give you some names, though.”
We drove home in a morose silence. I guess people who have been told they have a terminal illness feel somewhat the way we felt that morning. After all, in a sense, Leonard Paisley was dead, or dying.
Cassie was having a late breakfast out on the patio. Poor Aggie was whining in the relative cool of the back porch hoping to be invited outside in spite of the heat.
My daughter waved as we got out of the car and I tried to put on a happy face. I guess I did not succeed because she greeted me with, “Merde! I guess the lawyer was a bust.”
“I’m going t
o change, Paisley,” sighed Mother. “You can fill Cassie in on what happened.”
I flopped down in a chair and looked at my watch.
“Good God! I can’t believe it’s only nine-thirty. Pass me a glass and some juice, please. Aunt Matilda’s coffee is doing flips-flops in my tummy.”
“Who is Aunt Matilda?”
“Long story. Let me tell you about what the lawyer said first.”
She pulled a big straw hat out from under her seat and put it on to protect her face from the bright rays of the early morning sun. Skin cancer was the least of my worries, but it was getting hot so I took off my linen jacket and rolled up the sleeves of my silk shirt.
“And so,” I said as I wound up the lawyer’s tale, “basically he said to lay down, roll over, and beg for mercy.”
“That bad, huh?”
I confirmed, “That bad.”
“What did he say about the farm? Can he protect Gran’s interest so she doesn’t have to sell?”
This was the part that had really gotten to me. I tried not to cry now.
“Apparently, if we do something at this late date, like create a trust, or deed my share to someone else, you for instance, that’s obstruction of justice. Hawkins said some other things, but basically, we would be trying to hide assets and that’s illegal.”
“Because they have already filed the lawsuit?”
“That’s right.”
The porch door closed and Mother’s footsteps crunched on the walk. I remembered the brave way she tried to keep her bottom lip from quivering when Bruce Hawkins told us we could do nothing to save her home. She came up behind me and patted me on the shoulder.
“Not to worry, dear.”
She kissed me on the top of my head and sat down beside me. My tears started pouring again.
“Paisley, this is not your fault. I encouraged you…why, I practically forced you to write this book. Thanks for not telling Bruce that, by the way. So you mustn’t blame yourself.”
I sniffed back the tears as well as I could. “Thanks for saying that, Mother, but I should have known better. You did warn me about having the names sound so similar. And I should have changed the plot more, like Bruce said.”
