“You sound like you’re running for office,” Sarah said lightly.
“I’ve been approached. I said no—I think I can make a bigger difference as a lawyer and an activist. And my wife doesn’t want that public a life.”
Sarah reached for the towel in Nic’s hand, folded it quickly, and added it to the stack. Sat, and so did Nic. “What happened at school?”
“Tempe might not be my apple, but she didn’t fall far from the tree.” Nic flashed a crooked smile. “She’s straight, but there’s a trans girl in her class who’s been getting grief from other kids and Tempe stood up for her. Someone shoved a note into Tempe’s backpack calling her a lesbo loser with lesbo loser friends and parents. It happened Monday afternoon, after I’d left to come up here. She didn’t tell either of us, but the school called Kim yesterday.”
“Two days later? Why did they wait? Abby and Noah’s school had a zero-tolerance policy against bullying, whatever the reason was. Not like when we were kids.” When kids like Lucas could torment weaker classmates and get away with it. She’d bet good money.
“Because my kid—and I can’t decide whether I’m proud of her or mad at her—didn’t report it. Instead, she and her friends took matters into their own hands.”
“What? What did they do?”
“They knew who left the note—a boy who makes a habit of going after kids who are different. Kim got the story from the principal but confirmed it with Tempe. One of the girls lured the boy into a corner of the parking lot, where the kids formed a circle and Tempe confronted him.” Nic ran a hand through her close-cropped hair. “Same high school I went to. I never would have had the guts. Anyway, she told him he couldn’t talk like that. He said he could say whatever he wanted—free speech. She gave him a lecture about every right carrying a responsibility and how he had no right to say mean things.”
“Sounds like something Abby would say. How did the school find out? Any chance he’s the one who smashed the mailbox?”
“He says no about the mailbox, but Kim did make sure the cops knew. Anyway, big bully peed his pants. A teacher saw him borrowing a friend’s running clothes and pried the story out of him.”
Sarah covered her mouth with her hands. “I haven’t even met your kid, and I love her.”
“She is pretty great. And it is pretty funny.”
Sarah stopped trying to hold back the laughter, and Nic joined her. A few minutes later, they wiped their eyes, exchanging glances as the giggles subsided.
“Sounds like she handled it perfectly,” Sarah said. “You’re doing a good job.”
“Like you’re doing with Abby.”
But Abby was eighteen, not fifteen. Flying the coop, leaving the nest. Though to Sarah, she was still that little girl in the blue princess dress. “Text her. Tell her you’re proud of her. Tell her she did the right thing.”
“The principal wants to talk with all the parents—the boy’s, the trans girl’s, and us. Tomorrow afternoon. I could make it if I leave tonight, or the crack of dawn. But I don’t want to leave Deer Park while Janine is still under suspicion.”
“Can you reschedule?”
“Kim’s gonna try.” Nic leaned forward, almost pleading. Brave, smart, confident Nic. “Just don’t tell Janine.”
Then another voice interjected. “Don’t tell me what?”
22
How had they not heard Janine come in, Holly behind her?
“You have to go,” Janine said after Sarah poured fresh tea and Holly set out cookies they didn’t touch and Nic repeated the story.
“I do, but not tonight, and not for the reasons you think. Not because supporting my kid is more important than proving your innocence. No.” Nic held up her hand. “Don’t tell me I have to choose. I don’t. The meeting can be rescheduled.”
“Your kid needs her mother,” Janine said.
“My kid’s doing pretty awesome on her own. And Sarah’s right. Being a good mother doesn’t mean fighting your kid’s battles for them, or abandoning other commitments. Tempe needs to see me fighting for what I believe in. For her, yes, when necessary, and for you.”
Sarah was almost afraid to breathe, afraid she’d shatter the moment. She snuck a sideways peek at Holly, only to see the same uncertainty on her sister’s face.
“Thank you, all of you, for believing me. Believing in me.” Janine’s gaze stopped at Sarah. “But I need to be alone for a few minutes.” She pushed back her chair and headed outside.
What about that file of clippings? “We need to ask her …”
“Let me,” Nic said. “As a lawyer.”
Holly laid Sarah’s keys on the table. “I was too out of shape for more than a short run, so I took your car into town.”
“Did you see Mom? The studio?”
“Yes, and no. She was taking a break so we took a walk. I asked about her health. She says she’s fine.”
“I’ll let you two talk,” Nic said.
“No,” Holly replied. “Stay. I believe her. She may look fragile, but she walked my tail off. I also asked if she was planning to sell the lodge.”
Was she ready for the answer? “And?”
“Turns out, she’s asked a real estate agent to come out tomorrow, tell us what our options are. That’s the meeting she was headed to the other day when I showed up unexpectedly.”
“It’s always good to know your options,” Nic said.
“Options,” Sarah replied, “mean change. And I’ve had enough change.”
“We walked by the old Lake Hotel where that café wine bar place was,” Holly said.
“Why did it close?”
“Mom said the owners got a chance to take over a bigger place somewhere else and left on short notice. The Spruce is fine, but a decent town needs more than one café. It would be perfect for Janine.”
“In Deer Park? Are you kidding? Why would she want to come back here?”
“You may be tired of change, but she’s ready for one.”
“She’s actually mentioned it,” Nic said. “Her son’s fiancée is from this area. They’re talking about moving after they get married, and suggested she move up too. She’s always wanted to run her own place, but it’s daunting.”
But if Janine couldn’t afford a new phone, she couldn’t afford to open a restaurant.
“She would never take money from me.” Sarah bit into a molasses cookie, soft and moist, sweet and sparky.
“We can figure out a way,” Nic said as Holly said “Think about it.”
She grunted. They were teaming up on her, and it might work. But they would have to step carefully. “Dinner time. We can’t expect Janine to cook for us every night.”
“Why not?” Holly said. “One more thing. Two things. I called the local vet and the animal shelter. No reports of a missing cat who fits Bastet’s description.”
“Huh. So how did she get here? She’s too sweet not to have been someone’s pet.”
“Dunno. The other thing. On my way back, I saw a car pulling away from the roadside shrine.”
“What? Who?”
“Big white SUV. Woman driving, I think. No passengers that I could see.”
Like the one she’d seen.
“Did you see where she went?”
“Down the road to the Hoyt place.”
The same rig George spotted Sunday evening, or someone else? White SUVs were popular.
“Did you know George sold some of his land, on the east end below Porcupine Ridge?” Sarah asked her sister.
“Not until Connor just mentioned it. Who bought it? And why? You wouldn’t want to live up there.”
“No idea, though it sounds like the company is logging it.” She frowned. George had not liked her suggestion that he ask Connor to clean up the storm damage on his home place. Was there a connection?
* * *
They ignored all talk of murder and suspicion over dinner on the deck. They talked kids, the lodge, the cat, old friends, old times. The good times—and most of th
em were good times.
No grief support group, Sarah decided. She didn’t need it. She needed this—spinach salad, perfectly done pork chops, grilled peaches glazed with thick, sweet-tart balsamic vinegar. She needed friends talking about their lives, working things out together. She had friends back home, good friends. But old friends were the best friends.
After the dishes were washed, the air had picked up a chill and they settled inside to watch night descend on the lake through the big windows. So peaceful. For a moment, Sarah almost forgot that they were only here because of tragedy.
“So tell us about this mysterious trunk,” Nic said. “It belonged to your great-grandmother?”
“Yeah. They met in Butte. Caro’s father was a bigwig in one of the copper mining companies, where Con worked. He wanted to build a business of his own and started buying land with his savings. The story is that when they got married, her father staked Con so he could grow the lumber company. That’s why they moved up here in 1916, the year my grandfather was born. Then the war came and that boosted production, which really took off afterwards.”
“In the Roaring ’20s,” Holly said.
“When did they buy the lodge?”
“1922, I think. A railroad exec built it as a summer home and fishing camp, a couple of years earlier,” Sarah said. “Why he sold, I don’t know, but I always heard Caro fell in love with the place, so they bought it. Good business move—they entertained a lot of clients who came out on the train. They even had their own bus to pick people up. They kept horses and boats, and threw lavish parties.
“Every community had a few mills,” she continued, “but McCaskill had the resources to expand and buy out competitors, even during the Depression. The Hoyts ran a smaller mill until sometime in the ’80s, when construction tanked and our family bought them out. The conglomerates dominate the market now—Weyerhaeuser, Georgia-Pacific—but Connor’s managed to keep things going.”
Janine was flipping through an album. “Caro was quite elegant. I always wonder how couples like that handled money. Of course, it’s easier when there’s plenty of it.”
“She had money of her own, though what she used it for, I don’t know. Supposedly her mother believed every woman should have a private fund that her husband couldn’t control.”
Sarah picked up the journal and returned to the rocker. Life was simpler back then, right? The ink had faded from black to purple in places, and the formal script wasn’t easy to decipher. She leaned closer to the circle of light cast by the old bronze floor lamp with its parchment shade.
She picked up where she’d left off this morning, with Caro’s description of the family’s first morning at Whitetail Lodge in 1922.
We are so fortunate to have been able to buy this place, though I grieve deeply for Ellen Lacey, the girl, and their losses. The lake. I cannot fathom her desperation. Why powerful men feel they can do such wretched things, I cannot imagine. Thank goodness Frank L did not put up with it and sent H packing. Con has said H will never darken our doors. It is beastly unfair that we women must be so constantly vigilant.
That was intriguing. She turned the page.
But I do not want to write of these things or even to think of them, on such a glorious morning in such a beautiful place. The children and I will move out here for the summer as soon as Tom’s school year ends. He is getting to be such a big boy, tall and graceful like his father. I’ll have my hands full keeping an eye on those boys during the week, while Con stays in town to manage the mill. Fanny will be with me, of course, to help mind the children, and Mrs. O’Dell to run the household.
Ahhh. The mystery of Mrs. O’Dell, solved. She opened her mouth to tell Holly, but her sister had vanished.
She kindly recommended her friend, Mrs. Burke, to deliver hot meals for Con at the house in town, as I know he will tire quickly of eating at the hotel, and to clean once or twice a week. Thank goodness my husband is a tolerant man who does not mind making his own coffee or insist that I iron his shirts and collars. Heaven knows, I botched the job more than I succeeded, and it’s been such a relief to have Mrs. O’D take over. Once we’re truly settled, we’ll start entertaining. The lodge is too small for three children and guests—at least, my children! Con’s been setting aside timber from the road construction to build guest cabins, though we might not get them built for a year or more. We will have to invite only guests who are likely to be charmed and let those who insist on creature comforts cluck their tongues at our primitive ways—
The entry ended abruptly, as if Caro had heard a cry from the nursery or Mrs. O’Dell had interrupted her musings.
“Fanny the Nanny”—she remembered Grandpa Tom telling stories about her. Stories that had made her want a nanny, though her mother had howled when she’d asked for one.
Frank and Ellen Lacey. If they were the people who built the lodge, had they—Ellen, most likely—put together the construction scrapbook? She set the journal on the side table and dashed up to the sewing room. Found the scrapbook and opened it. Inside the flyleaf was the name Ellen Granger Lacey. She carried the scrapbook downstairs, along with the stack of framed photos, and set them on the coffee table.
Who were H and the girl, and what were the losses Caro mentioned? Connected to the war? The 1918 flu epidemic? But both were long over by the date of the first journal entry, and Sarah got the sense from her great-grandmother’s words that the Laceys’ losses were too recent and terrifying to linger on. A miscarriage or the death of a young child, perhaps in the lake? Life a hundred years ago had been full of dangers.
Still was. Just different dangers.
She returned to the journal. She was about to ask Nic for her reading glasses, but they were firmly on the other woman’s face, a thin sheet of paper in her hand, the Sampler box of letters open in front of her.
Readers. Another sign of change. Another thing to add to the shopping list.
Holly came out of the kitchen with a glass of wine and sat in the peeled log chair, gazing out at the lake.
Caro’s words became easier to decipher as the loops and links of her handwriting grew more familiar. The next entry was nearly two weeks later. We are HERE! All of us, together at Whitetail Lodge! she’d written with a flourish.
“Oh, my gosh,” Nic said, a letter in hand. “Listen to this.”
They all turned to her.
Dear Mrs. McCaskill:
Enclosed herewith please find twelve dollars and fifty cents. Thanks to your kindness and—
“Generosity, spelled g-i-n-e-r-o-c-i-t-y.”
Thanks to your kindness and generosity, I was able to pay a man to help me rebuild my homestead cabin and replace necessary items destroyed in the fire. I will get the rest of the money to you next month, after my hens begin to lay.
You will never know how much I appreciate your willingness to help someone such as me. My—
“Sincere, spelled with two s’s.”
My sincere regards to the ladies of the society.
“Signed, Hulda Amundsen.”
“It’s a thank you note,” Holly said. “No big deal.”
“Listen to this one,” Nic replied. She laid Hulda’s letter on the table and picked up another envelope. Slid out a piece of heavy linen stationery.
Dear Mrs. McCaskill,
My husband and I extend to you our deepest gratitude for your kind assistance in aiding our beloved daughter, Elizabeth, in leaving her unfortunate marriage and returning to us. While she is, naturally, mortified by the situation in which you and your friends found her, she is grateful to once again be among those who cherish her.
Enclosed is a draft, payable on our account at the First National Bank of Cincinnati, for the amount of your generous advance along with an additional sum which we wish to contribute to your endeavors.
“Signed, Mrs. Charles Pennington.” Nic rested the letter in her lap.
“They were repaying loans,” Janine said. “One to rebuild after a fire, the other to go home to h
er grateful parents.”
“Hulda’s letter mentions ‘the ladies of the society.’” Nic said. “Who, or what, was the society?”
“Wait, wait. I saw another reference.” Sarah flipped through the journal to one of the entries she’d skimmed in the carriage house. “Here it is. That same summer. Caro writes that Mrs. O’Dell—she was the housekeeper—made Con a birthday cake and decorated it with strawberries. ‘A gift from one of the young Society women,’” she read. “Then, in parentheses, like she was laughing, ‘What fun to put it that way!’”
“Mrs. O’Dell was the housekeeper?” Holly asked. “I was named for the housekeeper?”
“Obviously well-loved,” Sarah said. “I don’t know this society they’re referring to, but it sounds like our great-grandmother was lending money, at no interest, to women in trouble.”
As if drawn by a magnet, the four friends stared at the photograph of Caro in her silk dress. Kind eyes, yes, but oh, the firm set of that jaw.
23
Most of the letters were postmarked Deer Park or Whitefish, although a handful, like the note from Elizabeth Pennington’s parents, had been sent from other parts of the country.
“Two cents.” Janine held up a thin envelope. “It cost two cents to mail a letter in 1924. What is it now? Forever stamps don’t have an amount on them, so you forget how much you’re paying.”
“With inflation, it might not be much higher,” Nic said. “We’ve got about three dozen notes, dated from 1924 to—let’s see.” She flipped through the envelopes, a mix of small squares, large squares, and rectangles, white, gray, and ivory, thin paper and heavy linen stock. The handwriting varied, too, from ornate script to a round hand to simple printing. “Looks like the last letter came in 1938. Right about the time the worst of the Depression was over.”
“Some loans may have been repaid in person, without a note,” Sarah said.
“And the recipients might not all have been literate,” Janine added.
Bitterroot Lake Page 17
