Final Rights (13 page)

“You come back whenever
you want, young lady. I’m not much for company usually, but you’re different.
You bring homemade cookies!” The impish look on Leland’s face made Tate smile.

“I thank you for the ‘young lady’ reference.
I’m neither, really, but I’ll take it nonetheless.”

“Compared to me, you’re young. I made an
assumption about the ‘lady’ part!” Leland flashed a knowing look in Dorothy’s
direction, and all three of them burst into laughter. Leland’s quiet,
controlled reaction seemed unfamiliar to him.

“I’ll come back in a day or two. Do you need
or want anything else? I can be pretty versatile!”

“How about chocolate chip next time?”

“You got it.” Tate still held the wood in
her hand and she drew in its nourishing scent once more.

“Do you have enough wood? I could bring you
more if you need it.”

“No need. Mr. Price sees to it I have a good
supply.”

“Mr. Price?”
Who’s Mr. Price? I thought there was no one left in
Leland’s life.

“He don’t come a visitin’ no more. He’s old
like me. But he still takes care of things for me and makes sure I have enough
wood. This here is rosewood.” Leland took the specimen from Tate, seemingly
unaware of the revelation he had just imparted. Tate maintained her composure,
said her goodbyes and promised to return as Dorothy helped Leland out of his
chair and they headed toward his room.

Tate went directly to Ruby’s desk. “I know
our friendship is brand new,” she said in a teasing tone, “but I’ve got a big
favor to ask.”

Ruby looked at her, eyebrows furrowed, not
sure what to expect.

“Mr. Howard just mentioned a Mr. Price. Says
he takes care of things and gives him wood. Do you know who that is? Where I
can find him?”

“Now you know I’m not s’posed to give out
information like that, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course. I didn’t mean to . . .”

“Can’t say just who that is. But don’t see
no harm in saying from time to time a van from Price Automotive comes ’round
and drops off a package for someone here.” Ruby paused, holding Tate’s gaze.

“But anyone asks, you didn’t hear it from
me.”

“Lunch is on me, Ruby! What’s your
preference?”

“If I had a friend
inclined to do such a thing as take me to lunch, I’m mighty fond of that Uncle
Piggy’s place over by the high school. They got some barbecue that’ll make your
mouth water just thinkin’ about it.”

“Fact is, Ruby . . .
sorry, Ms. Ruby . . . I’ve been hearing about that place lately, but I haven’t
been there myself yet. How ’bout I pick you up tomorrow and we check it out?”

“No need to pick me up. I’ll meet you there
at twelve o’clock. Be helpful if you go early and hold us a place. The line can
be long sometimes, and I don’t like waitin’.” Ruby tilted her head slightly and
smiled.

This woman is full of fire and sass!
“I’ll be there. Lookin’ forward to it.” And
Tate was, indeed, looking forward to forging a new friendship. But she had
another mission on her mind, too. As soon as she got home, she Googled Price
Automotive and then headed back out immediately in search of more information
about Leland Howard.

TWENTY-TWO

2004

“How can I help you?” The voice came from behind the
counter as Tate entered the small lobby of the auto shop. The woman sported
curly red hair, striking blue eyes framed with trendy glasses, and a
no-nonsense attitude.

“I have what will
probably sound like an odd question . . . ,” Tate began as she took in the
surrounding area. The desk was covered with a variety of mechanical puzzles, a
few plants held tenaciously to life, and the walls sported funny sayings such
as:

Don’t
put your cigarette butts in the urinal.

It
makes them soggy and hard to light.

“. . . but then, this place is kind of odd,
too!” she blurted out.

“Yes, we take great pride in being a bit odd
here.” The woman smiled and, never breaking eye contact, waited for Tate’s
question.

“I wonder if you know a Mr. Leland Howard.
He’s a resident out at Forest Glen.”

“That would be my grandfather.”

“Mr. Howard is your grandfather?” Tate
gasped.

“No, my grandfather is the one who knows Mr.
Howard. They’ve been friends for decades.”

“Really? Then he’s the one who sends the
supplies for Mr. Howard’s woodworking?”

“Well, he used to. He’s in very poor health
and doesn’t get out at all. But he made sure Mr. Howard would continue getting
everything he needs. He’s Mr. Howard’s guardian.”

Once again, Tate found herself speechless.
A guardian?
“His guardian?” Tate asked. “I really need
to talk to your grandfather! What’s the chance of that happening?”

The woman took several moments to answer,
all the while looking intently into Tate’s eyes.

She seems to be sizing me up,
Tate thought.

“I might be able to set that up, but what’s
your interest in Mr. Howard?”

“It’s really complicated. He has a
connection with an old house in Montford—the one they want to tear down. It’s
none of my business, really, but I can’t seem to let go of the idea that I’m
supposed to save the place. So I started looking for information and, in the
process, found Mr. Howard, found you . . . every corner I turn leads to more
questions. And I can’t stand to leave a question unanswered. I’m quirky that
way.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Tate wasn’t sure what the woman
meant.

“Yes. I’ll put you in
touch with my grandfather. In fact, he may be able to see you today, if you’ve
got time.”

“Plenty of it! Please set it up for me as
soon as possible.”

“But I need to warn you, he can be
crotchety.”

Two hours later, Tate Marlowe entered the
library of Mr. Richard Price, a tiny, white-haired man ensconced in a wingback
chair, who apparently had no time to waste on Southern hospitality.

“How do you know Leland Howard?” he asked
before Tate even took a seat.

His granddaughter
was right. He is cranky! Better not waste his time.
Tate went right to the
point of her visit.

“I recently learned he owns that old place
they want to demolish over on Chestnut Street. I have this idea—maybe it’s
harebrained—that I’m supposed to save the place.” She paused, wondering how
much detail to provide. Sometimes less is more. Mr. Price did not stop her, so
Tate went on.

“I tracked Mr. Howard down to Forest Glen. I
spent a couple of hours with him earlier today. He told me a lot about his
life, but I have so many more questions. And he told me you take care of him.
That’s why I wanted to meet you. It may not make much sense, but I’m very fond
of him. I want to know more about him, his life, his work . . .”

“Why should I believe you? Leland doesn’t
talk to anyone anymore.”

“I made cookies for him. He ate a bunch and
talked ’til he dozed off.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Like I said, I’m fond of him. The staff
said he liked peanut butter cookies, so I made them and took them to him.”

“All of his work has been sold.”

“What?”

“If you’re looking for some of the pieces he
made, they’re all gone. Sold long ago.”

“No, I . . . what pieces? You think I’m
trying to . . .”

“Every once in a while, someone comes sniffing
around looking for a table or a chest or anything he built. Think they’ll find
something priceless lying around and buy it for a song. Well, it’s all gone.”

“Oh! No! That’s not why I’m here!”

“Then why exactly are you here, young lady?”

“Okay, let me start over. All I’m looking
for is information. Last week, I took a walk along Chestnut Street and I
happened upon the old place everyone is talking about. It’s all over the news
lately. I own a small house over on Maplewood that I’m remodeling. Both of them,
mine and the one on Chestnut, have very similar doors . . .”

Mr. Price relaxed a bit.
He’s willing to listen to me. That’s a
good sign.

“. . . and that got me
to wondering how my little place could possibly have something in common with a
crumbling mansion in Montford. So I started looking for answers. I found some.
I learned Mr. Howard was a master craftsman. Then I found him, which seemed
like a miracle, and he told me a lot. Now I’m here, talking to you, hoping for
more.”

“What do you intend to
do
with this information you want? Most people are just out to
make a buck. Don’t give a damn about who gets hurt in the process.”

“You have every right to
be suspicious of me, Mr. Price. You don’t know me from Adam. I can assure you
this is not about money. All I can say is my heart went out to Mr. Howard when
I met him. For some reason I don’t fully understand myself, I’m completely
fascinated with him. All this started when I decided I have to save the old
place on Chestnut. He owns it. That’s a matter of public record. Yet he never
mentioned it today even though I spent almost two hours with him.”

Just as his granddaughter had done earlier,
Mr. Price took his time appraising Tate. She sat quietly, squelching her urge
to keep talking. In the background, she heard the clock in the hallway chime
four times. As if on cue, Mr. Price began talking.

“I wondered why my granddaughter sent you to
me, but she’s real good at judging people. You stuck to your guns even when I
told you there was nothing left to buy.”

“Does that mean you’ll
talk to me?” She needed not ask.

“You see this old walking stick?” He leaned
forward in his chair, hands resting atop a beautifully carved walking stick
with what appeared to be an ivory handle. “A family heirloom, handed down
through four generations. It came to me on my twenty-first birthday, and not
two weeks later I managed to crack it badly. Thought I’d ruined it forever. A
long time later I met Leland Howard, and he put it back to nearly perfect
condition. Then I hired him to make the desk you see in the corner there.”

Tate looked at the piece he pointed out. A
simple design with a generally clean, spare appearance, five drawers and
impeccable craftsmanship, the desk harkened back to the work of Gustav Stickley
and Frank Lloyd Wright. But unlike their quarter-sawn oak or cherry, this desk
appeared to be constructed of curly maple, and the lines were more flowing and
delicate than the heavier Mission-style.

“It’s incredible! I’ve
never seen anything like it.”

“That’s the case with much of his work. Oh,
he did common things for sure, but in an uncommon way. Everyone wanted
something made by Leland Howard.”

“He must have been very successful.”

“Could have been. But he wanted a simple
life. He wouldn’t work for everybody, and he never worked any faster than he
wanted to. He was definitely choosy about what he did, and his modesty tempered
his success, I think. That’s one of the reasons his work was so special.”

“I saw a mantelpiece he
made. It’s over at the Princess Hotel.”

“Ah, yes, I remember that one. Took him
several months, way behind schedule. They were pretty upset about it.”

“It’s gorgeous, and the owner showed me a
secret compartment.”

“The desk has one, too. Think you can find
it?”

“I can try! It’s really okay?”
 

“Yes, of course. But it’s not easy, I
promise you.”

Tate walked over to the desk and began
slowly stroking the silky finish.

“This is incredible. Feels like it’s brand
new, and it must be fifty years old at least.”

“Probably even older.
It’s one of his earlier pieces, before his work really caught on.” Mr. Price
turned toward Tate as much as he could but made no attempt to get out of the
chair. She realized he must be in great pain.

She continued exploring the surface of the
desk, under the knee hole, around the tops of the legs, every seam she could
find. No luck.

“Pull out the bottom left drawer,” Mr. Price
instructed.

Tate followed his directions.

“Slide the whole drawer unit out. There’s a
small notch on the right interior.” Tate found the spot and out came a frame
that held both of the drawers.

“Reach in to the very back. There’s a panel
that slides out from under the desk top.”
     

Tate removed the thin plate and searched
under it. Nothing.

“Thought that was it, didn’t you?” Mr.
Price’s eyes gleamed with playfulness.

“Where else could it be?” asked Tate, her
frustration growing.

“There on the left, very bottom, right in
the middle. Lift up on the sidewall.”

Tate searched for the release point and
pushed in lightly. The sidewall slipped out of position, revealing the secret
compartment. No more than one inch wide, about three inches deep, and running
half the length of the left side of the desk, it could easily conceal small
treasures such as jewelry and coins.

“Oh! How clever! I love things like this.”
Tate surrendered to the joy of the moment and suddenly found herself lost in a
memory from childhood.

Tate’s love of secret
places had grown out of necessity, and she had been teaching herself the art of
self-protection for as long as she could remember. She learned to hide right
alongside learning to crawl, and while she could not remember with images and
sounds her tiny self under the sofa or behind the clothes in the closet, she
knew that feeling of being surrounded by musty darkness and being safe in the
moment.

One of her favorite hiding places as a child
was under the sheltering bush at the edge of the yard by the little house her
family moved into when she was five. The shrub grew tall, wide and untamed,
with long arching branches radiating out from its center.

In the spring, Tate
watched each little bud form along the boughs and push toward life. She
carefully inspected the branches, sometimes pulling one or two into a different
position to close any gaps. When the buds opened, tight clusters of white
blossoms filled the willowy arms from end to end, and the little flowers put
out a scent so strong it made her woozy if she breathed in too much of it. She
loved that aroma—the sweet, sticky smell of it—and the fragile coolness of the
white blossoms against her eyelids as she dipped down into the safety of the
scent, knowing the little flowers would be followed quickly by thousands of
tiny leaves, knowing behind those leaves there awaited a Tate-sized hollow, and
remembering when hunkered down there she would find respite, albeit too brief,
from a depressed mother and angry father.

“Miss Marlowe?” Richard Price’s voice
brought Tate’s attention back to the library.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I got lost for a moment.”
She felt the blush move quickly from her chest up her neck, then settle in on
her face.

“Somewhere long ago and
far away from the looks of it.”

“Yes, that sums it up nicely.”

“A pleasant memory, I hope?”

“A fond one. I just remembered hiding under
a bush at a house I lived in as a child. Seeing the desk took me right back there—secret
places and all that.”

Mr. Price beamed at her, and Tate
reluctantly reassembled the desk, then returned to her chair.

“Thank you for showing that to me. It just
makes me love Mr. Howard more. He’s much like the furniture he created, I
think. He holds lots of secrets.”

“That he does, but they are his secrets to
keep or to share. It’s not my place to tell you about his life.”

Joy turned to disappointment quickly, and
Tate let out a deep sigh. “Okay, I won’t press you for more information. But I
won’t give up, either. You may find me sitting here again at some point, and I
hope I’ll be welcome.”

“My favorite is brownies—with walnuts.”

Tate laughed out loud at the old man, whose
eyes twinkled with mischief.