Consequence (4 page)

As she browsed the cooking section, waiting
for Boone to call, Bridget noticed Erica Moore dusting the stacks
nearby. Her attention diverted to an attractive man walking towards
Erica, his raised finger against his lips. Bridget recognized the
local history professor Clay Knight and winked in silent agreement.
A second later, caught from behind and swept off her feet, Erica
squealed and dropped the duster. Recognizing her assailant, she
wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted her face for a
kiss.

Bridget grinned, a bit envious, but happy for
the couple.

Behind the cash register, June Moore beamed
at the playful pair. The older woman, an employee who came with the
bookstore, married Erica’s father recently. Erica gained a new
mother, and a top-notch manager for the shop.

“Hey, get a room you two.”

Bridget turned towards the second floor
mezzanine to see Marcel, chef of the coffee shop, taunting the
couple. Clay ignored him and pulled Erica onto a sofa.

Marcel caught Bridget’s eye and waved.
“Bridget, come here. I’ve got a wonderful new latte recipe I need
someone to try.”

Bridget shelved the cookbook and headed for
the stairs. “Don’t need to ask me twice,” she said.

A luxurious retreat, the café’s velvet sofas
and leather club chairs flanked small round tables and drew
customers like flies. A few of Eaton’s citizenry were already
tucked away, sipping coffee, reading newspapers, typing on portable
tablets and laptop computers.

At the top of the stairs, Bridget greeted
Janet Woods, the store clerk who moderated the book discussion
groups and informal gatherings.

“Hi Bridget,” Janet said. “Hey, I need a
theme for this weekend’s open mic night. What do you think?
Romantic standards, reggae, Celtic. Any suggestions?”

“Romantic standards, definitely,” Bridget
said, wagging her eyebrows. “I see Clay Knight’s back. It’s sweet
he and Erica are reconciled.”

“Oh yes,” Janet drawled, “didn’t you hear?
They’re getting married and opening a new bookstore in Virginia.
Her dad and June will run this shop.”

“If she hadn’t, I would have snatched that
man in a heartbeat,” Marcel quipped.

“As if,” Janet retorted.

“How are things with you and Tim Rogers?”
Bridget asked.

Janet’s cheeks pinked and she shook her head,
looking away.

“She’s too shy,” Marcel said, “and he’s too
stupid. He has no idea. Speaking of love, Bridget, are you getting
some, girl? Tell me everything.” Marcel put a mug of steamy latte
on the counter, sat on a stool and crossed his legs.

“Not a chance, Marcel,” she said, rolling her
eyes. Her cell phone rang. “Excuse me,” she murmured checking the
caller ID. Lifting the small phone to her ear, she wandered towards
the restrooms, out of earshot.

“Hello?”

Boone’s voice was warm and intimate. “Hi.
Where are you?”

“East of Eaton. I stopped by for a few
minutes.”

“You want to have lunch there?”

Bridget peeped over her shoulder and caught
Marcel and Janet watching her curiously. Marcel had a wicked gleam
in his eye. “No, not here. Umm…,” she trailed off.

“Meet me out front in two minutes and we can
drive to Frankie’s.”

“Okay.”

She punched the small button, ending the call
then put the cell phone in her coat pocket. Returning to the
counter, she picked up the latte and swallowed it in several gulps.
She slammed the mug on the counter and wiped her mouth with the
back of her hand. “Wonderful! Thanks, Marcel. Got to go,” she said,
then flew down the stairs and ran out the front door.

Janet and Marcel raced to the balcony in time
to see the Chance police chief’s cruiser stop alongside the curb.
They exchanged glances with June. “What’s the pool up to now?”
Marcel asked, inclining his head towards the storefront.

June peered out the window as Boone opened
the car door from within for Bridget. She daintily pushed her
half-glasses up her nose. “Two hundred and twenty dollars.”

Marcel let out a wolf whistle. The sound
caught Erica’s attention, and her head popped up from the deep
confines of a sofa at the back of the store. “What did you
see?”

Marcel danced a jig in the café. “Well, Miss
Nosey, get ready to lose twenty dollars.”

“What twenty dollars?” Clay asked.

Tim Rogers walked through the shop carrying a
heavy box of books. He set them on the counter for June to sort
through.

“Did someone win the pool?” Tim asked.

Marcel’s laugh pealed. “Mark my words,
amateurs. Boone and Bridget are days away.”

Clay looked at Erica curiously. “Days away
from what?”

She blushed. “Falling in love.”

Marcel snickered. “That’s one way of putting
it.”

June removed an assortment of travel books
from the box. “I still say it’s March with the spring equinox.”

“I’ve got the week of Valentine’s Day. Marcel
has the first week of the new year,” Janet added. “Want in on the
pool, Clay?”

“I’ll be happy to take your money, gorgeous,”
Marcel quipped.

A quizzical look on his face, Clay tucked an
errant curl behind Erica’s ear. “Boone? Is he the guy who came to
the house last summer?”

Erica nodded, a sad smile tugging at her
lips. “He’s the police chief of Chance, the little town outside
Eaton,” she explained. “Where the kids had the accident.”

The “kids” – Erica’s daughter, Daisy, and
Clay’s nephew, Brian Elder – were dating before the adults knew
each other and, in August, were in a horrifying car accident
together. While driving to Peachy’s, Brian swerved to avoid hitting
a deer on Last Chance Road, crashing through a guard rail and
rolling his uncle’s Jeep down a hill and into a flooded creek. A
quick response on Brian’s saved the injured Daisy, whose seatbelt
prevented her from escaping. For several horrifying minutes, she’d
been pinned underwater.

He pulled her from the wreckage and
administered CPR, then climbed the hillside with an injured leg to
flag a passing motorist.

Police Chief Alec Boone responded to the
scene and once the teens were en route to the hospital, he rushed
to the Moore house and informed Erica and Clay of the accident.

Although Clay met Boone only twice – at the
house and again when he went to the Chance Police impound lot – he
admired the man.

Erica knew Boone a bit better, and credited
him with saving her sanity one night on Weeping Woman Mountain.
Filled with fear and rage, she’d blamed Clay for the accident,
breaking up with him. She’d gone for a long, meandering drive and
wound up on the mountain road near the waterfall. There, no one
would hear her heart-breaking cries. Boone, patrolling the
township, came across Erica and offered her a bit of comfort and a
lot of advice. Although several months passed before Erica overcame
her anger, Boone’s sage words helped pave the way to
forgiveness.

She recalled him saying, “... you can’t
anguish over what could have been. I know how it feels to love
someone and then lose them in an accident. You can’t assign blame.
You can’t hide behind your anger. It will eat away at you until
there’s nothing left.”

“What date did you select?” Clay asked
Erica.

“I picked April,” she said with a grin. “But
I don’t mind losing. I want everyone to be as happy as we are.”

“Count me in,” Clay said, opening his wallet.
“I’ll take the end of February, when the ice breaks on the
lake.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Bridget and Boone slid into the first open
booth at Frankie’s Diner, facing each other. While Bridget’s eyes
scanned the room for people she knew, Boone read the laminated
menu.

“I don’t know why you bother,” she said,
lifting her chin to nod at Frankie. She raised two fingers. “You
always order the same thing.”

“I can change,” he said, winking at her over
the menu.

Frankie plunked two thick white cups of
steaming coffee on the table. She removed a small tablet from her
grease-stained apron pocket, then reached behind her ear for an ink
pen. Her face crinkled into a smile, her blue eyes twinkling behind
eyeglasses. Frankie, a thick-waisted matron in her late sixties,
kept her curly, salt-and-pepper hair short and while working at the
diner, in a hair net. She looked and acted like a public school
cafeteria lady, which she had been for thirty-eight years. Instead
of retiring, she and her husband, Joe, purchased the old diner on
Main Street.

The diner had been a hangout for teens during
the 1950s and ‘60s, and the wooden tables still bore the etched
initials of most of the people of Eaton. The green leather benches
had been re-upholstered in the late 1980s, but other than that, and
the microwave oven and soda fountain, the diner remained the same,
frozen in time.

Frankie added a comforting ambiance. Since
she had slapped Salisbury steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy on the
lunch trays of most residents also, during her tenure at the
elementary school. She claimed she knew everyone by their first
name, as well as their parent’s and even most grandparents.

“Afternoon, Boone. The usual?” Frankie’s pen
hovered over the pad. “What about you, Bridget? What’ll you have
today?”

“I’ll have the soup of the day and an egg
salad sandwich,” Bridget said pulling napkins from the
dispenser.

Boone hesitated so long, a frown creased
Frankie’s forehead. She shuffled her sore feet.

Bridget clasped her fingers on the tabletop
and waited. Seconds passed with still no answer. Bridget pushed the
Boone’s menu down and quirked her eyebrow.

He forced a quick grin at her, then tilted
his head to Frankie. “The usual. Thanks.”

Frankie shook her head, tucked the pad back
in her apron pocket and ambled away.

Boone leaned back into the booth, one hand on
the table and another resting on his thigh. He rubbed his thumb and
forefinger together, then shrugged.

Bridget poured sugar from the container onto
a spoon, then stirred it into her coffee. She added a splash of
cream from a small silver pitcher. Wrapping both hands around the
cup, she raised it and sipped carefully.

“When are we going out to the cabin?”

Boone looked over his shoulder when the small
bell pealed over the opened diner door. He watched a couple with a
toddler enter, then head for the back of the diner where the
highchairs were stored. “We’ll go tomorrow,” he said, looking back
at Bridget.

“Sounds good. I guess I’ll go to the
courthouse and look through property records. I wonder if someone
around here knows anything about the owner.”

“I’ll ask Frankie,” Boone said, watching her
efficient moves behind the counter.

Ten minutes later, Frankie placed their food
on the table, refreshed their coffee and asked if they needed
anything else.

“Boone has a question,” Bridget blurted.

He eyed the steaming pile of breakfast mess
on his plate, a conglomeration of scrambled eggs, spicy sausage,
grilled onions and cheese. He placed his napkin in his lap and
picked up his fork. “It can wait.”

Frankie winked. “I’ll be back.”

Boone and Bridget moved to the counter after
their meal, wanting to catch Frankie away from the other diners.
Frankie swiped a damp tea cloth along the counter, catching crumbs
and spills as she worked her way towards the couple.

“What’s on your mind?”

Bridget shifted forward on the stool when
Boone spoke. “Can you recall who lived in the old cabin near
Weeping Woman Falls? The one off the highway; not the one in the
meadow.”

Frankie closed her eyes and stood still,
searching through her mental file cabinet. “The Gaumer place,” she
said.

Boone pulled a small notepad from his uniform
shirt pocket along with a mechanical pencil. He scribbled
quickly.

“Hmm,” Frankie continued. “I remember my
parents talking about him. Creepy old man who shacked up with a
young, black woman. They had a daughter near about my age. Name was
Carol. No wait, Cherry.”

“He was married to a black woman?” Bridget
clarified.

“No. That wasn’t done much back then. I
remember their little girl was a couple grades or so behind me in
school. Other kids used to slap her around, call her names because
she was illegitimate and mixed-race. She was a quiet little girl.
Always sad. Of course, who wouldn’t be in her place? Kids are
cruel. Then one day, she went away.”

Boone raised his eyes from his notes. “What
year was that?”

“I’d guess it was about 1960 or so,” Frankie
said. “I remember JFK was president then and we were all crazy
about him. My family had gotten a television.”

“Do you know what happened to them? The
family? The father? Where they went?” Boone asked.

Frankie shook her head. “No, can’t recall.
Nobody took much notice of them. They didn’t have any friends I
knew about. Gaumer was a mean cuss. People say he was a drunk and
used to beat the woman. Threatened kids with his shotgun when they
tried to swim at the falls.”

Boone and Bridget shared a look.

“Violent man, huh?” Boone asked.

“That’s what I heard. I never saw him. Just
saw the little girl at school, and sometimes her mother at Peachy’s
grocery store. They didn’t go to our church. Never came downtown to
go shopping. It’s like they were ghosts.”

Boone tucked his notepad away. “Thanks,
Frankie.”

“Um hmmm. Now, what’s this all about?”

He considered not answering but knew his
brothers would soon spread the gossip. “Found an old skeleton under
the cabin. Skull’s bashed in.”

Frankie’s eyes widened. “Think it’s her? Or
is it Gaumer?”

Boone shrugged, unwilling to talk about
potential suspects and their motives. There is no statute of
limitations for murder.