The Fire of Home (A Powell Springs Novel)

by Harrington, Alexis

  Bax headed there and knocked. “Come in, Fred,” he heard her call.

  “Doc, it’s Bax Duncan.”

  The sound of footsteps crossed the floor, and Jess opened the door and stepped out. She looked composed but tired. “Sorry, I thought you were Fred Hustad.”

  “Amy said he’s on his way. So—she’s gone?”

  Jess nodded and shut the door behind her. “About thirty minutes ago. I’d like to keep this room closed off from the rest of the house until she can be moved.”

  He sighed. He’d really liked Deirdre Gifford. “She went so fast.”

  “That methanol pretty much finished her off. She lost her sight, like Winks did.”

  He flinched.

  She put on a resigned face. “But she wouldn’t have survived. Hasty consumption has a very poor outcome.”

  “I stopped by the office. Whit told me they’ve had a couple of deaths in Fairdale and Twelve Mile too. The news came in the mail.”

  Jessica shook her head in wonder. “I suppose it was bound to happen—I just wasn’t expecting it here. Did you talk to Granny Mae?”

  “Yeah. She’s a wreck over this—she didn’t want to talk to me but I finally convinced her that she’s not going to jail.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “She doesn’t know who she bought that alcohol from. She’d never seen the man before, and when she described him, I couldn’t hazard a guess as to his identity. But then I don’t know that many people around here.”

  “Mae does. If she didn’t recognize him, he must have been a stranger.”

  He rubbed a thumb over his chin. “Who’s going to tell her about this?” He gestured at the closed door.

  “I will.” Amy walked toward them. Her eyes were still red, and her hands looked chilblained from the scrubbing. “I feel responsible.”

  Bax turned to Amy. She’d grown so accustomed to blame, she accepted it even if it didn’t belong to her. “It was an accident. Nothing was intentional, was it?”

  She looked over Jessica’s shoulder to the four-panel door behind her. “No.”

  Just then, someone knocked on the front door downstairs.

  “That will be Fred, I imagine,” Amy said, and she turned to go meet him.

  Tabitha stood on the platform to watch the porter unload her belongings from the train. He tossed them onto the baggage cart as if they were hay bales instead of her treasured Louis Vuitton luggage.

  “Excuse me, please be careful with those trunks. There are some fragile things in them. And have them delivered to the New Cascades Hotel.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The porter nodded, and she stepped forward to hand him fifty cents.

  “Oh, and where is the taxi stand?”

  He turned one ear toward her slightly and gave her a sidelong squint. “The what, now?”

  “Where can I get a taxicab?”

  “There’s nothing like that in Powell Springs. I’ve never even seen a taxicab, except once when I was in Paree during the war. Anyway, the hotel is just there, two blocks over.” He pointed at a two-story brick building that shone rust-red in the sun.

  She sighed and walked down the platform steps to the street. The trip out here had not taken all that long, though there were numerous stops on the way, but her day had been, and she was frazzled and tired. She looked down at her wrinkled cream bengaline suit and realized it was probably impractical to wear for travel. It would just get dirty. But her ivory gloves and straw cloche created such a lovely ensemble. She would change clothes when she got to the hotel and hope that the wrinkles relaxed.

  Her escape from the house had taken place in the dead of night, with her belongings going first. After another visit from Rinehart, this time with a real police officer, Tabitha had become so nervous she didn’t want to wait any longer. Elsa arranged for her brother to take the luggage to Union Station and check it. Two hours later Tabitha followed in a taxi, in case any nosy, and potentially gossipy, neighbors were watching. To reward her efforts and loyalty, Tabitha had paid her maid six weeks’ severance pay, plus a bonus of seventy-five dollars, a gift so handsome that Elsa wept with gratitude. Tabitha had left the hall lamp on, as she always did, to make it appear that she was still home. Then she locked up the beautiful, stately house on Park Place, and with a grief-stricken last look, climbed into the taxi that carried her to the train depot. Whether she would see it again was impossible to know.

  Looking around now, she saw that Powell Springs was a humble village of a place compared to Portland. Not even Main Street was paved, and there were as many horses on the roads as cars. And dear God, was that ghastly figure perched in the horse trough a replica of the Statue of Liberty?

  She had to keep her mind on why she was here. This was not a European holiday. She was here because Harlan had made it impossible for her to stay in her home, and she’d come to find him. She didn’t know if he was here, but at least no one in this town knew her either.

  Once she had her room, and her belongings had been brought upstairs by the bellboy and a put-out maintenance man, she had a chance to look around. By local standards, the hotel was probably the height of elegance. To Tabitha, it was adequate. At least it appeared to be new and not furnished with lumpy old castoffs from the previous century. She wouldn’t have to go down the hall to a communal bathroom. But given her limited means—a galling situation in itself—she could not have afforded something more expensive in any case.

  Next to a north-facing window, she settled in a chair upholstered in dark-blue rep and looked down the length of Main Street. Tomorrow, after a bath and a decent night’s sleep, she’d begin her search for Harlan. If he was in this town, someone must have seen him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Over the next few days following Deirdre’s death, Amy, Tom, and Bax had collected everything Amy believed should be burned and taken it outside. Each had tended a fire. Now she stood over the burn pile to splash kerosene on it, then struck a match and threw it on top. Following a foom, flames erupted, creating a cloud of thick, gray smoke pungent with the petroleum smell of lamp oil. The last remnants of Deirdre Gifford’s worldly goods were sterilized and consumed by fire. There had been no sense in saving any of the stuff like old letters or hairbrushes—Deirdre had no living relatives, no next of kin to notify that Amy was aware of.

  She leaned on the handle of an upright rake. What a horrible two days it had been, with events jumbled together in her mind like scenes from a fever dream. All their clothing that would withstand boiling she had stirred in a galvanized washtub on the other side of the backyard. Those garments that would not survive such treatment were in the pile before her, along with the mattress, a wool blanket, and the flotsam of a life cut short by the surprise attack of an illness.

  Jessica had insisted that they all come to her office to undergo the Mantoux test for tuberculosis to learn if they’d been infected. She included Granny Mae—most especially Granny Mae, because she cooked for the public. All of them had tested negative, thank God. To make sure, they were to come back in a month to repeat the test.

  How strange and awkward it was that Amy had peered at her sister across the great gulf of their estrangement, extending her hand for help and accepting that help without addressing the reason for their falling out. She could argue to herself that so many things had happened to derail her attempt to apologize, that the right moment kept eluding her, and that wouldn’t be unreasonable. But Deirdre’s death brought home to her the consequences of intentions too long delayed.

  Tom Sommers had come to her yesterday after they got back from Deirdre’s funeral to tell her he was moving out. While she scrubbed the floor in Deirdre’s now-empty bedroom with Lysol, he stood before her torturing the hat he gripped. It was not because of the possible contagion, he said, or anything wrong with the accommodations. His hours were long and unpredictable, and for him it just ma
de more sense to move to a cabin at the sawmill. Amy saw the real reason in his eyes—regret and a kind of grief, not just for Deirdre’s death, but perhaps for the death of future possibilities and a dream held close. She believed that had Deirdre not become ill, she might have had that husband and family she’d longed for with Tom. Amy sighed and let him go with good wishes.

  Fire caught the scorched, lacy edge of a valentine stuck in the burn pile, and it disappeared in a hungry blue flame. Things could change that quickly.

  Amy had no illusions about her own future. But she was beginning to regret returning to Powell Springs. It had sounded like a nearly perfect, if not sensible, destination, with her inheritance and its ready-made income. Nothing had gone well since she’d come back, though. She hoped only for peace, and freedom from the infuriating, unpredictable tyrant who was her husband, although the second wish had been a childish, impractical dream. She had neither. Although she hadn’t seen Adam since that evening in the hotel lobby, she had no idea where he was. He could pop out at any time. Then there was that other man, Breninger, who’d tried to swindle her out of a month of rents. Peace came at a higher price than she’d realized, and she wasn’t yet sure of its full cost.

  Still, even as she told herself this, the image of a tall man with dark hair and eyes the color of the fire’s smoke rose in the play of the flames. At moments of unguarded reflection, he wore the expression of a weary cynic, and she understood why. But there was something more she sensed in him that extended beyond her own brief goals of security and heart’s ease.

  Bax had hope.

  Amy envied that. She couldn’t see far enough ahead to hope.

  Tabitha Monroe stood outside an eatery and looked up at the ceramic tile numbers above the door, then back at the scrap of paper in her hand. Inside, customers seated at tables jabbed cutlery into midmorning meals, sipped coffee, and read their newspapers. The desk clerk in the hotel had told her that if she wanted to find someone, this place or Tilly’s Soda Shop would be the best places to start, although he pointed out that Tilly’s might not be a place for a lady to visit.

  Here, the addresses matched, but its only identifier was the word Café painted in red letters on the plate glass windows.

  “For heaven’s sake,” she said aloud.

  She couldn’t go in and sit at a table, waiting all day to see who walked in. There had to be a better way.

  She pushed open the door and a bell rang overhead. Inside, she saw a counter with stools. Behind that another counter held a Hamilton Beach milkshake mixer, assorted glassware and crockery, and a pie and a layer cake under domes. On the wall above, a Coca-Cola calendar with an illustration of a pretty girl in a beautiful hat smiled at her. At the end of the back counter, swinging louvered doors that led to the kitchen bore signs that said No Admittance. Enticing scents of coffee, cream, roasting meat, potatoes, and sugar all mingled together.

  But there was no one waiting tables and the diners around her stared as if she were from a distant planet. She could hear something going on in the back—sounds of frying, clanking pots, dishes.

  “Excuse me,” she called.

  Soon, a rangy old woman pushed open the doors partway. “Just have a seat. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  “No, I’m not here to eat. I’m trying to find . . . something.”

  The woman emerged, wearing a white bib apron and a faded housedress. “Okay. I know just about everything that goes on in this town and everyone who does it.”

  Tabitha blinked at the woman’s undignified informality. “Yes, well. A clerk at the hotel told me I should talk to Mae Rumsteadt and that someone here could direct me to her. I want to find a man.”

  The old woman’s brows shot up. “I don’t know why anyone told you that! I run this café and the only things I serve up is food and coffee.”

  She stared at the crone, mortified by the woman’s misunderstanding. “You’re Mae Rumsteadt?” For some reason, she had expected a homey sort, living in a charming cottage with overstuffed furniture, ruffled curtains, teapots, cookies, and crocheted antimacassars.

  “I am, missy. Who are you?”

  “I-I am Mrs. Monroe.”

  “A married woman, and looking for a man?” She gave Tabitha a once-over.

  Tabitha pressed her lips together. This was dreadful, just so dreadful. She felt the eyes of everyone present boring into her. Her own eyes flew open so wide, she thought her lashes must be tangled in her brows. What a horrible hag, and worse, she didn’t even seem to realize how insulting she was. She should have just gone back to her cousin’s house. Then she remembered—people were looking for her and it wouldn’t be hard to trace her back to them. Plus, her family had been fairly eager to see her married off to Harlan. Oh, they’d tried to hide it but they weren’t very subtle. Their relief had been palpable when she’d announced her engagement.

  She swallowed and briefly shut her eyes. “Mrs. Rumsteadt—”

  She waved her off. “Oh, I’m just Granny Mae to everyone. Anyway, there never was a Mr. Rumsteadt, except my daddy.”

  For some reason, the name Granny Mae conjured an image of a clucking chicken in Tabitha’s mind. In a low voice, she said, “Please, I don’t want to discuss anything in front of an audience . . .”

  “Come on back to my office.” Then to the customers she said, “You all go on with your meals.”

  Tabitha cringed, but the group did as they were told. She must have lost her mind. She’d left it on that train from Portland or perhaps dropped it while she had walked up and down the street, because she was actually listening to the old woman, too. Like a dutiful schoolgirl, she followed her into the “office,” which turned out to be a big kitchen with a huge range, dried flowers and herbs dangling from the ceiling alongside braids of onions and garlic, and raw meat on a worktable. Tabitha couldn’t decide if she felt as if she’d looked through the open gates of hell or into someone’s most intimate space. In any event, she felt distinctly out of place. Instead of leaving, though, she stayed.

  “Now, what’s this really about?”

  “I’m looking for my husband, Harlan Monroe. I heard a rumor that he might be here in Powell Springs. The clerk suggested I talk to you because you see just about everyone who passes through this little town.” She adjusted her handbag on her arm and ran a nervous, gloved hand over her jacket lapels. “The clerk also mentioned someplace called Tilly’s Soda Shop. I don’t know why but he said that I might feel out of place there.”

  Mae considered her expensive clothes and hat again. “Ho, I can guarantee you would. It’s a saloon, and not too many women hazard a trip in there.”

  “Do you think you’ve seen my husband?” Tabbie asked, trying to get the information she came for and get out.

  “Nope, not around here. Up and left you, did he?”

  “Not exactly, well, no, I think something bad might have happened to him on a business trip and I’ve decided to look for him myself.”

  The old woman’s skeptical expression told Tabbie she wasn’t buying her story, but she didn’t say it.

  “And truthfully, I’m hoping to find suitable lodgings for a while. I’m not sure how long, and a hotel costs more than I’d like to spend. Can you suggest something?”

  “You’re in trouble with the law?”

  God, but the woman was tactless. Tabitha wasn’t really wanted by the law. But Harlan was, and if the authorities couldn’t find him, they would keep pestering her. “No, I am not! It’s . . . something else.”

  “Oh, that’s right—a man. That’s why there was never a mister in my life. At least not one I had to answer to. Coffee?”

  “No, thank you.” Tabitha couldn’t imagine why she stayed, but she detected a sympathetic ear in the artless, tough-hided Mae, and that kept her in the kitchen.

  Mae walked to the stove and poured a cup for herself from a blue enameled pot
. “All right, then. First things first. I don’t know about your husband, but I believe I know the solution to one of your problems.”

  Amy and Bax sat in the living room after dinner. Actually, she sat on the sofa, and he was slumped so low in a chair his backside was on the edge of the cushion. His legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. In the quiet, she heard the mantle clock ticking with slow resonance within its walnut case, and somewhere a block or two away, a dog barked.

  She crocheted.

  He slept. His hands were interlaced on his belly. His breathing was quiet and even, his forehead smoothed out.

  The blinds were all pulled to keep out the prying eyes of Adam’s hired thug, and Bax had made sure the doors were locked. Now it was just the two of them in the house, and she’d never been more aware of his presence. She had told no one about initiating divorce proceedings against Adam. It just wasn’t something discussed in polite company. But her thoughts could not help but stray to the possibility of an unencumbered future, when she would be free of him and able to make a better choice, her own choice. She could imagine herself and Bax under different circumstances, but the situation didn’t involve sitting in the living room, with her crocheting while he napped, like an older, staid married couple. She’d seen him awake, asleep, sober, tipsy, angry, in various states of dress, serious, and smiling. She hated to admit it to herself—she didn’t want to be attracted to any man now—but there was nothing about him she really didn’t like. And if he were gone, she would miss him, and mourn the chance they might have had.

  Her imagination carried her upstairs with him, out of this living room. When she realized the path of her thoughts, her face grew warm. She’d never craved Adam’s contact and it hadn’t taken long for her to loathe it. Her experience was limited to him, but surely for all the fuss some women made in giggling, whispered conversations among themselves, there must be more to making love than what he had demonstrated. Sometimes she thought that she could have been anyone to him, any faceless, nameless female for all the attention he paid to her during those awkward, mechanical encounters.