Pumpkin Ridge (Rose Hill Mystery Series Book 10)

by Pamela Grandstaff

  “We’ll just shut this door,” Bonnie said, “so we can talk.”

  Melissa felt a shiver of dread cascade through her body, but she dutifully went in and sat down at the kitchen table. The Formica was peeling, and the vinyl seats of the chrome chairs were patched with duct tape. Bonnie had spread wax paper over the table’s surface, and it was sticky with pieces of dough and dusty with flour.

  “Why are you baking on your day off?” Melissa asked her.

  “I can’t sit still,” Bonnie said. “Unlike some people, I can’t just sit and vegetate in front of the television for hours; I have to be doing something. My knees have got so bad I can’t go upstairs to clean, and I can’t go downstairs to do laundry, so I’m baking.”

  “I’d be glad to do some laundry for you,” Melissa said.

  “You’re a good girl,” Bonnie said, “but Delia’s coming over later to do it. Since Ian died and she quit working she’s at loose ends, poor thing, and if she’s not minding Pip’s children, she’s over here minding us.”

  “I can still hardly believe Ian’s gone.”

  “Well, the Ian Fitzpatrick I knew had been gone a couple of years before he died,” Bonnie said. “It’s a crime what dementia does to people. It’s a mercy he died when he did, and I don’t mind anyone hearing me say so. Before his family went broke and lost their health in the caring of him. He wouldn’t have wanted that, do you agree?”

  “I do,” Melissa said.

  “We all go when it’s our time and not a minute earlier. I hope when it’s my time the Lord will spare me a few moments to explain why wicked rich people have such an easy time of it and us poor but good folks have to suffer.”

  “Please sit down,” Melissa said. “Let me wait on you while you rest your legs.”

  “You’re as good as gold,” Bonnie said. “I don’t mind if I do.”

  Bonnie proceeded to boss her around for an hour while Melissa made coffee, cleaned the kitchen, put a load of dish towels in the washer, and then put the cinnamon rolls that had been proofing near the gas box heater into a hot oven to bake. If it felt right, and it felt familiar, it was only because Melissa had worked for Bonnie in the bakery for so many years.

  When Melissa finally sat down with a freshly baked cinnamon roll and a hot cup of coffee of her own, Bonnie dove right in.

  “My son came home early this morning,” she said. “I didn’t expect him.”

  Melissa knew Bonnie well enough to know she wasn’t supposed to speak until she was asked a direct question, so she started unwinding her cinnamon roll instead. She liked to eat them that way.

  “I couldn’t get a word out of him, as usual,” Bonnie said, “but I know what the problem is, and I’m finally going to have my say. I’ve kept my tongue in my mouth for a long time where you two are concerned, but look where that’s gotten us. I didn’t say a word when he moved in with you, on account of it’s a new century and I had hopes that there would be a wedding and some grandchildren soon after. But that hasn’t happened.

  “I know he’s got some pie-in-the-sky dream about adding on to that bar and having a restaurant and a dance place, but you and I both know that’s never gonna happen. You may think you know why, but I do know why, and I’m going to tell you.

  “I’m also going to tell you why he can’t get Ava’s hooks out of him. He won’t talk to me about it, but something’s got to change. I’m being done out of a wonderful grandchild, and an innocent child is being done out of a perfectly good grandmother, while Will’s mother can’t be bothered.

  “I’m also going to put you on the spot about the bakery. If you and Patrick don’t take it over, I’m going to have to sell it, on account of Fitz’s kidneys are failing, and I need new knees, and there’s no way we can afford any of that without selling. We have no savings. Social Security and Medicare may be yanked away from us at any minute, depending on how big of a tax cut those millionaires in Washington give the billionaires that own their souls, so I have no choice. Maggie knows a catering lady who wants to buy it and will pay us enough money, but I would like it to stay in the family.

  “There’s this house to consider. It’s falling down around our ears as we speak. I don’t think we could get but what the land underneath it is worth if we sold it and that’s next to nothing. I talked to Ruthie down at the Mountain View Retirement home in Pendleton, and we can give them this house and move into a small apartment there, but I still need the money from selling the bakery. I would have liked to leave our business and home to one of our children, but Maggie’s got her hands full at the bookstore, Sean can barely make toast, and Patrick thinks he’s going to make a million dollars hiring bluegrass bands to entertain college students.

  “You’re a sensible girl. I feel like you’re a niece to me, just like Hannah and Claire. I had hoped to call you daughter-in-law, but it looks like Patrick’s going to fool around and mess that up, too.

  Bonnie took a deep breath, but never took her fierce blue-eyed gaze off Melissa.

  “So,” Bonnie said. “What do you want to tackle first?”

  “Tell me about Ava,” Melissa said.

  Bonnie took another deep breath.

  “You want to know anything about Ava, you ask Delia,” she said. “Delia worked at the B&B for her while Brian was missing and she saw everything. Ava’s a beautiful woman, and a wily one, and she’s used to manipulating men to get what she wants. She’s also a good mother, I can’t fault her there. But she’s greedy, and she wants to have her cake and eat it, too.”

  “Will and Patrick.”

  “Don’t ask me how I know, just trust me that I was tipped off by a dear friend,” Bonnie said.

  Now it was Melissa’s turn to take a deep breath. She knew better than to cry in front of Bonnie; it would just make her mad.

  “How long has this been going on?” she asked instead.

  “Who knows?” Bonnie said. “I don’t know what it is about that woman; she must have a trick coochie.”

  “I figured they were together while I was gone,” Melissa said. “But I thought it stopped when we moved in together and I for sure thought it ended when she married Will.”

  “I don’t think he ever stopped,” Bonnie said. “I’m sorry, I know that’s not easy to hear. But somebody needs to tell you the truth, and I guess that’s me.”

  “You don’t think she’d leave Will for him?”

  “Why should she? She’s got it made, swanning around in her expensive clothes, driving a fancy car, going on exotic vacations, and living in that big house. Not that anyone in this family has been invited to see it.”

  “I guess there’s nothing I can do about it,” Melissa said. “I’m going to have to let him go.”

  “Don’t be so hasty,” Bonnie said. “There’s more to tell.”

  Melissa got them both some fresh coffee and changed out the laundry. They folded dish towels while they continued their conversation.

  “Have you ever seen that little one of Ava’s, that Olivia?” Bonnie asked.

  “Sure,” Melissa said. “She looks just her mother, just like her big sister Charlotte.”

  “Except for the blue eyes.”

  “That’s not that unusual,” Melissa said.

  “No, but I’ll tell you what is,” Bonnie said, and held up her hands.

  Her knuckles were gnarled with arthritis knots, the backs were wrinkled and spotted, but the quicks of her nails were a light pearly pink. She held up the first two fingers of each hand.

  “Look at this,” she said. “Look at your own hands. I’ll bet anything the index finger is shorter than the bird finger, just like mine. Go on, look.”

  Melissa held out her hands.

  “See?” Bonnie said. “Now, if we were to go in there and wake up his majesty, and ask to see his fingers, on each hand you’d see an index finger longer than the bird.”

  “Like Patrick’s.”

  “Like Brian’s, like Patrick’s, like Maggie’s, like Sean’s,” she said. “All
my children have the long index finger, and it’s rare. Neither of Fitz’s brothers has it, and none of their children do. It’s from some pirate way back, one of those Spaniards who showed up in Ireland and seduced his great-great-grandmother.”

  “So you’re saying Olivia has it, too.”

  Bonnie slapped the table and pointed at Melissa.

  “You bet your sweet bippie, she does. That child has my eyes and my husband’s finger. Now, how do you think that came about?”

  “She’s Patrick’s daughter.”

  “And my granddaughter by blood. But do I get to see her and cuddle her and feed her good baked things? I do not. Meanwhile, that useless mother of Will’s can’t be bothered to even visit that child. If it weren't for Ernie being my blood grandchild, I’d never see him, either. Charlotte, she shipped off to Europe three years ago, and just this past August she sent my precious Timmy to a boarding school in New England, of all places, where those Yankees are mean to him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He calls me and cries,” she said. “It breaks my heart.”

  “But you say she’s a good mother.”

  “When they’re young. When the babies are young and don’t give Ava any lip, or ask too many questions, or get in the way of what she wants to do, she’s a marvelous mother. But the minute one of them gets difficult or sees what’s really going on with their mother and the men she’s involved with, then it’s off to rich children boot camp, and we never see them again. She did that with Charlotte, and she did that with Timothy, but I’ll be damned if she does that to Ernie or Olivia, not on my watch. I’ve had enough of Ava’s shenanigans, and I aim to put a stop to it.”

  “But how?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Bonnie said. “I need your help.”

  “What can I do?” Melissa said. “I’m nobody.”

  “Patrick loves you, I know he does,” Bonnie said. “If he could get free of Ava I think you two would be just fine.”

  “I don’t believe he wants to be free. Why can’t he be if he wants to?”

  “She’s got his child, and something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She owns the tea room,” Bonnie said.

  “What?”

  “She bought the tea room from Knox’s estate after it settled, and owns it through a shell company, so no one but Patrick knows about it.”

  “Why did she do that?”

  “Because she knew Patrick wanted it, and her condition for selling it to him is that he gives you up.”

  “How did you find that out?”

  “Timmy told me,” Bonnie said. “He followed her one night to see where it was she went to, and heard her tell Patrick it was time for him to choose. Timmy confronted her, and she shipped him off on a fast boat to Yankeetown.”

  “And Patrick turned Ava down.”

  “He loves you,” Bonnie said. “He really does.”

  “I don’t know,” Melissa said. “This is really twisted.”

  “If we can find a way to get her hooks out of him, once and for all, the way would be clear for you and Patrick to be together.”

  “If he loves me so much why does he keep having sex with her?”

  “Men are like dogs, my darlin’,” Bonnie said. “They like to roll in shit. It’s their nature.”

  “That’s malarkey right there,” Melissa said. “If Patrick trusted me, he would tell me all this, and we could work it out together. So he quits seeing Ava, so she sells the tea room to somebody else. He could demand a blood test for Olivia and fight her for joint custody.”

  “Only Ava’s husband is a wealthy man, and very much under his wife’s thumb. He could sue Patrick into the poorhouse.”

  “But he’d know the truth.”

  “Wouldn’t matter, he’s that far gone. No prenup, and him a millionaire many times over,” Bonnie said. “But show your hand to Ava, my darlin’, and threaten what she holds dear, and you’ll end up just like my firstborn, dead in a ravine.”

  “You think Ava did that?”

  “She had it done,” Bonnie said. “You ask Delia about that sometime. She’ll tell you.”

  “You think she’s blackmailing Patrick by threatening to hurt me?”

  “I don’t think she even has to say the words; he knows her better than anyone. You get in between Ava and something she wants, and she will get rid of you. She’s rich enough to arrange it, too.”

  “So, how can we fight that? It sounds like she has us right where she wants us.”

  “We’re going to figure it out,” Bonnie said. “We’re going to put our heads together and come up with a plan. We have to.”

  “I’m not smarter than her, and I’m sure not as sneaky,” Melissa said.

  “But you love my son.”

  Melissa sighed.

  “I do,” she said. “Patrick’s also my friend; I hate to see this happen to him.”

  “Then help me figure out how to beat her at her own game.”

  “We’re going to have to have some help,” Melissa said.

  “We need to be careful,” Bonnie said. “We have to keep this close.”

  “I know who we should get,” Melissa said. “Hannah.”

  “She’s leakier than the holiest sieve,” Bonnie said.

  “Not when it’s this important,” Melissa said.

  “But she’ll tell my daughter,” Bonnie said. “And do we really want that?”

  “I don’t know if she’ll tell Maggie or not,” Melissa said. “But we have to trust somebody, and that person has to be wilier than Ava. Hannah’s nosy, she’s sneaky, and she’s smart.”

  “And her husband used to work for the CIA or FBI or something,” Bonnie said.

  “If we need him that would be handy,” Melissa said.

  “So, I take it you haven’t given up on my son.”

  “I want to help him,” Melissa said. “After that, if we’re successful, we’ll see. That’s all I can promise.”

  “Now, about the bakery,” Bonnie said. “I’d really like you to have it.”

  “I love you,” Melissa said, “and I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me, but I don’t want the bakery. I like what I’m doing, and I’m good at it. I’m helping Sean, and we work together really well. I don’t want to give that up.”

  “He doesn’t like girls, you know,” Bonnie said. “Don’t go falling in love with him; it will only end in tears.”

  “I’m not in love with Sean,” Melissa said. “Don’t worry about that. It’s just Patrick for me, and if not him, then nobody.”

  Melissa left Bonnie’s house, clutching her coat around her to keep out the fierce wind that was blowing, making her ears sting and her eyes water. When she reached Pine Mountain Road, she could see Patrick’s Uncle Curtis driving his tow truck down the road toward her. Curtis stopped and waved her over.

  “Hey Lil bit!” he said. “I haven’t seen you for a long time. How in the world are you?”

  “I’m fine as frog hair,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “A tree came down the river and pulled Will’s boat off the dock,” Curtis said. “I don’t know how it didn’t take the whole dock with it. I’m towing out the tree on the other side of the dam, and Will wants his boat back if there’s anything left of it. Seems like he could afford a new one, but he wants this one back; said he bought it for Ava.”

  “Can I ride with you?” Melissa asked.

  “Sure,” Curtis said, and Melissa climbed in.

  Melissa liked Curtis, who was Hannah’s father. He was a quiet, even-tempered man with a keen sense of humor. He had a wife who could place first among hypochondriacs if that were an event in the Olympics, and Melissa felt sorry for him on account of it.

  They drove down to Daisy Lane, the alley which ran parallel to the brick wall separating the college from the town. At the end of the alley, where the college wall turned left and fled south, a narrow dirt lane ran between the wall and the rail trail. They bounc
ed over the rutted dirt track to where the top of the dam was, down over the hill, and then right across the tracks, to the base of the dam. The dam spill-over had been adjusted to a minimum, so they could clearly see the rocky bed of the river and the huge tree that had crashed over, carrying the boat.

  There were a few men already there, and volunteer firefighter Calvert Fischer, dressed in his scuba gear, was putting his gloves on. They greeted Curtis and consulted with him about how to go about what they were doing. After a few minutes Curtis got back in the truck and drove further downstream, then got out and started unwinding the tow cable. Calvert used a rope held by two fellow firefighters to slip down the steep bank, waded in with the big hook attached to the end of the tow cable, wound it around the top of the trunk of the tree, and then let his fellow volunteers pull him back up the bank.

  “The tree is not that waterlogged yet; I think it will hold,” he told Curtis.

  Someone handed Cal a silver emergency blanket and a hot cup of coffee. He wrapped the blanket around him and then wrapped his hands around the coffee cup.

  Curtis started winching the cable, which drug the massive tree closer to the steep bank. Branches snapped off, and the gnarled roots dripped muddy water as the tree left the river bed.

  “Not much left of that boat,” Curtis said.

  Sure enough, Melissa could see the splintered hull of the boat, and something else.

  “What’s that?” she asked him.

  He shrugged, but when the tree was completely winched up onto the bank, Melissa made her way to where the men were waiting with chainsaws to cut it up.

  There, in the broken hull of the boat, was something made of cloth.

  “Could you hand me that?” Melissa asked one of the men.

  He obliged and dragged the sodden lump of black cloth back to where Melissa stood.

  “Looks like a coat,” he said.

  Melissa rolled it up, wrung it out and then shook it out. It was a hooded nylon anorak with a fuzzy lining of gray shearling. Expensive, she thought. There was a small flashlight attached to the zipper pull. Melissa stuck her hand in each pocket of the coat and found a set of two keys on a key ring that looked familiar.