Bindweed

by Janis Harrison

  Chapter Ten

  When I joined Abigail and my father on the path, my father was saying, “—been calling and calling your cell phone. Don’t you have it with you?”

  “I left it in my car, Albert.”

  My father frowned. “You had me worried. I didn’t know where you were.”

  This conversation baffled me. “Dad,” I said, “Abigail has a life outside of her job. Besides, it’s Sunday. She deserves a day of rest.”

  My father quickly nodded. “Of course. You’re right, Bretta, but there’s been a—uh—development.”

  I asked, “Development concerning what?”

  My father shuffled his feet and switched his cane from one hand to the other. He glanced at Abigail, but fastened his uneasy gaze on me. “I don’t want to upset you, since nothing has been decided, but I—uh—took a piece of furniture from the attic to have a watermark removed and the finish restored.”

  “Oh really,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Is this piece of furniture for you personally, or do you have plans to use it somewhere else?”

  “It’s a writing desk, and we thought it would fit into the Golden Dawn room, especially if the oak finish has been successfully restored. I can pick it up today, and I thought Abigail might like to ride along.”

  I asked, “Who did the work?”

  “Phillip Pritchard. He has a workshop behind his sister’s antiques store.”

  “I know Yvonne,” I said, touching my pocket where I’d put the notes. I wanted to talk with her, and today would give me more time than tomorrow when I’d be busy at the flower shop. “If you both don’t mind, I’d like to tag along. If Phillip is going to do the furniture restoration for the bedrooms, I’d like to see the first sample of his work.”

  Abigail’s head swiveled toward me. I nodded. “That’s right. You have the job.”

  At the very least, I expected a joyous whoop. Her smile was almost sad, which confused me. “I’ll try to live up to your expectations,” she said solemnly.

  My father was more exuberant. He grabbed me in a bear hug, squeezing the breath out of me. In my ear, he whispered, “I knew you’d make the right decision, daughter. This is wonderful. Just wonderful.”

  He released me and stood back to smile at us. “We’ve got plenty of work ahead of us, ladies, but I’m sure this experience will form an enduring friendship.”

  Abigail answered his presumptuous statement by saying, “I’ll meet you at Phillip’s.”

  Determined to have his way, my father overrode Abigail’s objection to riding with him. She wanted to drive her own vehicle back to River City. He informed us that we would ride together in his truck so we could get to know each other better. He further stated that once we had picked up the writing desk, we would bring it home so we could see how it fit under the window in the Golden Dawn room.

  Under my breath I muttered, “Push, push.” I was referring to my earlier conversation with Abigail about how my father had changed. She was so quiet, so downbeat, I was hoping to reestablish the amicable link we’d shared while making the glider soar through the air. But Abigail ignored me. To my father she said, “Whatever you want, Albert.”

  My father took her simple words as law. On the ride into town, he outlined plans and made assessments as to the amount of time involved in the redecorating project. I kept waiting for Abigail to add her professional opinion, but she was quiet, letting my father ramble.

  I was bewildered. Didn’t she want the job? Had she changed her mind? Her entire attitude had undergone a transformation. When she’d arrived in the garden, she’d been open and friendly. Now she seemed standoffish, withdrawn from me. I tried to think of what I might have said that would have brought about this aloofness. Was it the criticism of my father or my questions about her parents? I thought about asking her, but if I broached the subject in front of my father, he would only assure me that everything was “wonderful”—a word I was beginning to despise.

  So for reasons of our own, Abigail and I rode in silence, allowing my father control over the conversation. “The Treasure Trove is closed this afternoon,” he explained as we arrived at our destination. “But Phillip told me he’d be out in the barn.”

  The Pritchard property rested within the city limits. Back in the midfifties, the farm had been a thriving dairy operation. The white clapboard farmhouse was Yvonne’s antiques showroom. Each room held pieces that pertained to that particular living space. I’d taken DeeDee with me one time when I was looking for a dining-room chair to match the three I’d already found. I hadn’t been able to get her away from the kitchen. She’d been fascinated by the utensils used in bygone days.

  The porch had red geraniums blooming in old crocks, dented buckets, and other unique containers. A trellis made from an iron bedstead supported a yellow climbing rose. Iron wagon wheels attached to posts formed a boundary that marked the business end of the property.

  Yvonne and Phillip lived in a double-wide modular home that had been squeezed in next to the store. Sharing the rest of the land was an old barn with an attached silo, and a chicken house complete with a flock of laying hens. Scratching in the dirt behind a wire fence were some ducks, a couple of geese, a few sheep, and a goat.

  Following Phillip’s instructions, my father took the driveway that divided the business from the Pritchard’s home. I’d never been down this hedge-lined road. Once we passed their residence, a tall woven-wire fence with an iron gate barred our way. A sign directed us to “HONK.” My father tapped the truck horn. After a few minutes, the gates opened electronically, and we entered the barnyard.

  The barn was a Dutch design with a gambrel roofline. The huge sliding door was open. Yvonne sat in a pool of sunlight working a spinning wheel. The setting was picturesque and tranquil with a herd of sheep grazing in a nearby pasture, and the silo casting its elongated shadow across the grass.

  We got out and Abigail turned to me. “Do you like horses?” she asked.

  “From a distance. I don’t ride, but I think they’re beautiful.”

  Abigail smiled. “Watch this. Yvonne showed me this trick the last time I was here.” She whistled a couple of high to low notes. A white horse ambled around the corner of the barn. Under her breath Abigail said, “This is the neat part.” Raising her voice, she called out, “Come, Sugar Cube.” She pointed her finger at the horse.

  The horse pricked up its ears. Abigail lowered her arm, then raised it again to point at the horse. “Come, Sugar Cube.”

  “Are you offering it a treat or is that the horse’s name?”

  “It’s his name.” A wide smile stretched across her face.

  I looked at the horse. With his head held high, he clip-clopped across the barnyard straight to Abigail. She stroked his nose and tugged gently at his ears. “Isn’t he a sweetheart? I so miss being around a horse.”

  “You have horses where you used to live?”

  Before she could answer, Phillip came to greet us. The smile he turned on me was welcoming, his handshake firm. “I didn’t know you were bringing guests, Albert,” he said. “We’ve just brewed a pot of tea. I’ll have Yvonne hunt up more cups.”

  I demurred, saying we didn’t want to cause them any trouble, but Phillip was already striding back to the barn with a purposeful step. He spoke to Yvonne, who got up slowly from her seat at the spinning wheel. She waved to us before disappearing from view.

  As we entered the barn, Abigail and my father showed no particular interest in their surroundings. They took off to the back of the building where Phillip was waiting. I lingered, trying to see everything at once. I was standing on smooth concrete. High overhead, oak beams formed the skeletal structure. The floor of the hayloft provided a portion of the ceiling. Milking stanchions ran the length of the building, with wooden troughs facing the main alleyway of the barn.

  Dishes clattered off to my right. I called, “Yvonne, I hope it’s all right that I came along with my father and Abigail.”

  She came out of the
room pushing a tea cart. “Bretta, you’re always welcome.” She gestured to the cart. “Here in the barn I don’t use my good china, so we’ll have to make do with mismatched cups and saucers, but I do have homemade oatmeal cookies.”

  “You really don’t need to do this. We aren’t staying long.”

  She parked the cart and offered me the tin of cookies. I chose one and took a bite. After swallowing, I said, “These are delicious. I like them soft and moist.”

  Yvonne waved away the compliment. She had more on her mind than cookies. “I heard Abner was arrested for Toby’s murder. From what I hear, Abner had a scam going. For a mere pittance, he was buying back the groceries he’d already billed to Agnes’s estate.”

  I nodded. “That’s what I heard, too.”

  She groaned as she sat back down at the spinning wheel. Rubbing her knees, she said, “I suspect we’ll soon learn that he was also padding the original grocery bill.”

  “That’s possible,” I agreed. “I read the notes you gave me about Toby.”

  “Were they helpful?”

  “You did a very good job. I was particularly interested in the duck-hunting episode.”

  Yvonne shook her head. “Poor Toby. He was crushed when he came back. He didn’t take to the idea of killing any critter. It was a—what do you call it?” She stopped and thought. “Traumatic experience,” she said with a nod. “Phillip and I both tried to tell Harmon that Toby wouldn’t like hunting, but he had it in his head that Toby needed a man’s influence in his life.”

  “You wrote that in your notes. What exactly was Harmon talking about?”

  “Since Agnes worked for Harmon at the drugstore, he had a front-row seat when it came to Toby. Harmon thought that Agnes babied her son. Harmon even tried to get Agnes to send Toby away to a state school, but she wouldn’t hear of that.”

  “What business was it of Harmon’s? Just because Agnes was an employee didn’t mean he had any say in Toby’s welfare.”

  Yvonne eyed me. “I figured you knew that Harmon loved Agnes, especially with you being right down the street from the pharmacy. It was common knowledge. But Harmon wouldn’t take on Toby as part of the marriage package. When he made this clear to Agnes, she turned him down. Before Harmon could get Agnes to change her mind, she found out the cancer was back and that this time it was terminal.”

  “Did Agnes love Harmon?”

  Yvonne held out her plump hands. “I’m just guessing that she did. She never said as much, but she loved someone. There was a man in her life, and if it wasn’t Harmon, then I don’t know who it was.”

  I was curious. “Why do you think Agnes had a man in her life?”

  “Because she sparkled. There was a light in her eyes that even the cancer couldn’t dim.”

  I ate the last of my cookie as I pondered this information. I wasn’t sure how it fit into Toby’s death. If Agnes loved this man—whoever he was—she surely would have trusted him to look after Toby once she was gone. But that didn’t work with my theory that Agnes feared someone in Toby’s life would have a negative influence on him—unless it was Harmon.

  I dropped the topic of Agnes’s love life, and asked, “Do you think Abner is the one who put the hornet’s nest in Toby’s bedroom?”

  “My instincts tell me no. Melba thinks Abner did it, but she doesn’t like him.”

  “Do you know if there’s a specific reason?”

  “Abner put in a line of candles and potpourri at his grocery store. Melba was furious. As she said to me, ‘I don’t plan on selling milk, bread, or cheese. Why should he infringe on my territory?’”

  “She has a point. I know that Abner sells blooming plants, which are usually priced lower than what I’m selling. I don’t like it, and I don’t particularly like Abner, but I can’t see him messing with a hornet’s nest.”

  “Then who did it?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Have another cookie?”

  Reluctantly, I declined.

  Yvonne sighed. “I wish I had your willpower. I’m so big I can’t do the things that used to give me pleasure. Sugar Cube is my horse. I loved to ride him, but now I can’t get my foot up high enough to put it in the stirrup. And even if I accomplished that feat, I’d be afraid my weight would hurt him.” She turned her sharp gaze on me and demanded, “How did you do it? How did you lose so much weight and keep it off?”

  I gave her a quick version of how I ate lots of fruits and veggies. I ended by saying, “Quick, convenient food is the most damaging.”

  “But it’s so good. Agnes was always lecturing me on the danger of fast food. She never went out to eat. She didn’t buy potato chips or Coke for Toby. She told him restaurants were dirty and that the food could poison his body. According to her, nature’s bounty was the only thing he was to put in his mouth. Apples, oranges, bananas, peanuts—unsalted, of course. Popcorn, no butter. Lemonade, with little sugar. Her special treat for Toby was a frosted shredded wheat biscuit.”

  Yvonne chuckled. “I can’t tell you the number of times I watched him lick off the sugar and toss the fiber to the birds or break it up and feed it to Sugar Cube. Toby gave that horse carrots, celery, and other bits of healthful snacks that Agnes thought necessary for a long life.” Yvonne sighed. “And then that woman up and died young. What was the point of depriving herself—”

  From the other end of the barn, Phillip called, “Yvonne, will you hunt up that chart that shows the different colors of stains? I think it’s in on my desk.”

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, levering herself up from her seat at the spinning wheel. She stood upright slowly. “My knees are giving me fits. I’ve had replacement surgery, but my doctor says another won’t do any good unless I lose the weight.” She waddled across the alleyway and into a room.

  I looked at the tin of cookies that was within easy reach. Then I looked at the door where Yvonne had disappeared. It wouldn’t be polite to stash the cookies out of sight, but I could take myself away from temptation. I jumped up and meandered over to one of the milking stanchions and ran my hand over the smooth, glossy boards.

  Behind me Phillip said, “I can’t get that kind of finish with a sander. The cows slicked up that wood with constant contact while poking their heads through the stanchions to eat. When I turned this place into my workshop, I thought about tearing all this out to make more space, but I didn’t have the heart. This is a piece of Americana that can’t be duplicated.”

  I agreed. “Destroying it would have been a sin. It’s good to see a barn of this type being preserved. So many are left to literally fall down in disrepair.” I turned in a complete circle. “I grew up on a farm and we had an old barn, but it was nothing like this. There isn’t any hay, or straw, or cobwebs.”

  Phillip laughed. “Since I use this barn to stain and varnish furniture, the days of storing hay are long gone. But there are cobwebs. They’re just up so high you can’t see them.”

  I walked farther into the barn, noticing a faint, unpleasant odor. I’d identified the expected turpentine, varnish, and paint that Phillip used in his work, but this odor was different.

  When I commented on it, Phillip said, “After years as a dairy farm, the essence of cow still lingers.”

  I sniffed again. “This doesn’t smell like cow.”

  Phillip frowned and took a deep breath. His brow cleared. “I know what it is. I’m so used to it that I don’t even notice it. Follow me.” He led the way to the back of the barn. “I think you’re smelling the silo. I haven’t done any renovating in this area. Structurally, I think it’s sound, but several bricks are missing, and the top is gone.”

  He took a ring of keys from his pocket. “Keeping doors and gates locked can be a nuisance, but for insurance reasons we were forced to make certain restrictions. I had problems with Yvonne’s antiques customers roaming all over our property. The silo is a real draw for kids and adults. The original iron ladder is still attached on the exterior, but the first rung i
s an unhandy ten feet above the ground. Our insurance agent wanted the silo dismantled, but I balked at the idea. To pacify him, I put locks on every door, and fenced and gated the immediate property near the store.”

  Phillip opened the door, then stood aside so I could enter. I walked slowly over the threshold into a corridor with a dirt floor. Filthy windows allowed a murky light to penetrate the gloom. The odor was stronger.

  Phillip said, “This covered area was used by the farmer to bring the silage to the cows.”

  I nodded. “Now I recognize the smell. When I was a child, a neighbor chopped corn-and-grain sorghum. He stored the green fodder in a pit. After a few months of hot weather, the wind would pick up the stench and carry it to our place. My mother said the stuff smelled too rancid to feed to an animal.”

  “Once the plant fibers start to break down, the smell can be offensive, but only if the silage hasn’t been properly packed into the silo. If all the air is forced out, then the fodder doesn’t spoil because mold can’t survive without air.”

  Phillip flipped through his ring of keys. “This isn’t the right set,” he grumbled. “I must have left the silo key on my desk.” He touched the bricks. “There isn’t much to see, but if you want, I’ll run get the key. Once I get the door open and you look up, all you see is sky, because the top is gone, but it’s an interesting piece of architecture.”

  Before I could answer, Yvonne hollered that she’d found the chart he wanted.

  Phillip sighed. “I guess I’d better get back to work. You come out another time, I’ll give you a proper tour. I love this old barn. It was built back in the late twenties, and the beams in the original main alleyway don’t have any nails. They were put together with pegs.”

  As we walked back to the main entryway, Phillip continued my education on the construction of barns. He pointed out the different woods that had been used for siding, and the size of the trees that had been hewn to make the massive support posts.