Lethal Lineage (20 page)
I escaped back to the historical society early the next morning and set to work laying out pages. That done, I pulled out my laptop and clicked on my Excel program, then double-clicked on the spreadsheet containing the names of the women who had helped build St. Helena.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing came up. Incredulous, I stared and tried again. I use an off-site back-up system that starts about ten pm. I accessed it, planning to restore the file. But “Fundraisers” wasn’t listed among the saved documents.
I couldn’t imagine that I’d used any wrong procedures. Panicked, I went to the main historical society desktop and scrolled through all the information. We keep all the technology simple and easily accessible. Nothing appeared to be missing there.
The list of women wasn’t very long. In fact, I realized there might be fragments still on scraps of paper I’d tossed into the trash. There was. It wouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to duplicate my work. But two hours was two hours. Worse, after finding the scraps, I was beginning to doubt that I had saved it to the hard drive to begin with.
Little terrors. I began again, mindful of every keystroke. My edginess was caused by more than the sabotage at our farm. After coming dangerously close to making assumptions about Myrna Bedloe’s life based on Edna’s, I was losing faith in my instincts.
I wanted my moxie back. From time to time, a residual fear wells up in my mind; apprehension that I will slip into the state I was in last fall. A fear that the stability I had previously always taken for granted was fake. Easily demolished like a house built on sand.
When the phone rang, I jumped out of my skin.
“Lottie, can you come? Hurry.” Elmira’s voice blurted like she’d run a hundred yard dash.
“It’s Edna. She fell.”
Damn, damn and double damn.
“I’ll call the EMTs right away and be there myself in a flash. And Elmira, don’t try to move her. OK?”
The ambulance beat me to the house. Elmira and Mrs. Hargraves stood crying on the doorstep. They both talked at once.
“I don’t know how it happened,” Mrs. Hargraves said. “I don’t. We’ve been so very careful. She was holding onto her walker and shuffling along the floor. She didn’t trip or anything. Just kaboom.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “There’s nothing you could have done. In fact, I’ve heard doctors say that instead of women falling and breaking a hip, the reverse is often true. They break a hip and then they fall.”
They calmed.
“Old bones,” I said. “Porous. Just can’t support weight anymore.”
They looked relieved. I took their phone numbers and told them I would call from the hospital.
***
She had indeed broken a hip and needed surgery. The last time Stuart was at Edna’s, she’d given him power to authorize medical decisions.
When I called him, he said “Just a minute, Lottie.” I heard him order his secretary to cancel all appointments for the next three days.” Then he came back on the phone. “I’ll fax Dr. Martin any forms he needs, then I’m on my way.”
“All right. You can reach me on my cell. I’ll be here with her.”
He made the trip from Wichita in record time. Stuart plopped down beside me in the surgical waiting room and glanced at his watch.
“They took her in about two hours ago,” I said.
“I authorized them to go ahead with a joint replacement. Despite her age. Mom and I talked about this kind of stuff when I was here the last time. She doesn’t want a bunch of machines hooked up to her, but she’s not ready to leave this life either.”
We both jumped to our feet when the surgeon came into the room.
“She’s fine,” Dr. Martin said. “It went well, everything considered. Her kidneys aren’t in great shape, but she’s in decent health otherwise. Not spectacular, but considering her age, she’s reasonably healthy. In fact, she’ll see significant pain reduction.”
“Terrific,” I said. “She just loves her little house here.” I looked fondly at Stuart. “Her son here has done everything in his power to make it work.”
Dr. Martin gave Stuart a lop-sided smile. More like a sympathetic twitch. “Sorry, Mr. Mavery. Everything considered, you’re not going to be able to pull that off anymore.”
“I’m not surprised,” Stuart said. “We both knew this time was coming, we just didn’t think it would get here so fast. I’ve been checking out assisted living facilities in Wichita.”
“Edna is very tough,” I said. “She’ll find new friends. I know she’ll love being closer to you.”
“I really am sorry. These transitions are hard for everyone, but it’s good to know you’re on top of it.” Dr. Martin clapped Stuart on the shoulder. “Let me know if you have questions. The clinic can always reach me if something comes up.”
We thanked him and he left. Stuart said he was going to stay until Edna was out of recovery, then take his luggage to his mother’s house and get a bite to eat before he returned.
“I may sleep in the chair in her room tonight, depending on how she’s doing.”
***
I visited Edna two mornings later. Stuart was holding her hand when I stepped into the room. She beamed when I set a lovely spring bouquet on her bed table. She reached out with her arthritic twisted hand and stroked the petals on a daffodil. It was lovely! Bright red tulips and hyacinths combined with baby’s breath filled the room with color.
“You look great,” I said. “Stuart tells me you’re making a wonderful recovery.”
“Well, my boy here doesn’t let me want for a thing. Waits on me hand and foot,” she said tenderly. “Did he tell you, Lottie? I’m going to be moving to a home close to him and Tina. They’ll keep me here for about a month for therapy and rehabilitation, and then we’ll put my little house up for sale.”
“You’ll do just fine,” I said. I looked at Stuart and smiled. He rose and reached over and kissed his mother’s forehead.
“I’m going back this morning, Lottie. She’s in good hands here, and I’ve got a lot of loose ends to take care of. Not to mention getting the house ready for sale.” He glanced at Edna. “Got a minute?”
I followed him out into the hallway. He shoved his hands in his pockets and paced a few steps, then turned to face me. “This beats anything I’ve ever seen. I love my mother and we’ve always been close. I’ve done my best to be a good son to her. You would think she would trust me.”
“What brought this on, Stuart? What’s changed?”
“Nothing against you, Lottie, but I’ve been here for three days now and she hasn’t brought up her past at all. She’s told a rank stranger secrets she’s kept all her life.”
Tears stung his eyes. He pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose. “She should have told me. I’m her son. I have a half-brother and sister out there somewhere. Kin. Why won’t she talk about it?”
“Stuart, this has nothing to do with you. She adores you. She’s ashamed. It’s the stranger-on-the-bus syndrome. People will bare their secrets on a long ride to someone they’ve never seen before and never will again.”
He said nothing and stared at the floor.
“She asked me to tell you,” I reminded him. “She
did
want you to know, she just couldn’t bear to look you in the eye.”
Wounded, shoulders slumped, he stared at some spot on the wall. Just like his mother would have done.
“It’s her way, Stuart. The way she handles things. She evades. Runs away. Tells outright lies, if she must.”
Just little white ones
, I thought.
“Before you move her from Gateway City for good, I want you to listen to some tapes. The part that’s hurting you the most right now isn’t recorded, but I think there’s a story about some wee mice that might give you a peek at how your mother’s mind works.”
“I don’t care about some goddamn mice. I want to know where my brother and sister are. And I want to know how in the hell she got to Kansas.”
He suddenly gave me a quick glance, as though worried about having offended me. His freckles were stark against his pasty skin. A man who worked too hard, worried. Needed more sunlight. “Sorry, Lottie. None of this is your fault.”
Agent Brooks called that afternoon and asked if I had time to help contact all the people on my list. I agreed to start the next day.
“I hope we can zero in on persons for further questioning, instead of this guesswork leading to nowhere,” she said.
“I’ve scheduled a meeting for next Saturday to break the news about the glebe to the fund raisers.” I had kept Brooks posted about anything involving church business, just in case there was a connection to the murder that wasn’t readily apparent to Sam and me. “I can ask questions afterwards on an informal basis. Provided I’m not tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.”
***
We met at the high school gym in Bidwell County on a Saturday when no activities were scheduled. I certainly couldn’t have risked using some Copeland County facility, and under the circumstances my own Carlton County wasn’t a good idea either.
Ingalls was the fourth county involved in the St. Helena fiasco. It did not have a public building or even a school. Ingalls had been involved in a bitter modern day county seat fight. It won, but refused to acknowledge that the county was drawing its last breath.
Gove County, another small county in Northwest Kansas had suffered through similar experiences, but went on to develop a keen sense of community. They all pulled together.
However, when the good citizens of Ingalls won the county seat fight and could no longer wage war on outsiders, confused, they’d looked around and happily turned on each other. Ingalls had a sheriff because it was state law, but rumor had it that it was sort of a sheriff-of-the-month system maintained through drawing names from a hat.
About fifty women filed into the gym and found seats on the bleachers. Most were married and their husbands had contributed labor for the church. They intuitively looked around for women from their own county, and clustered as though they were back in high school. When they went home I knew they would tell their spouses how badly we had screwed up. So I wanted to keep the information clear, simple, and final.
I had requested a podium and a gavel. I wanted to sound authoritative, and help them accept the finality of losing this land, this church. There was no recourse.
Having decided to launch right into my talk with no attempts at lame jokes, I whacked the gavel, then announced that I had bad news regarding St. Helena. Bad news in addition to the untimely death of the Reverend Mary Farnsworth. I traced the general history of glebes, and their rarity west of the Mississippi River. I gazed at the unhappy gathering of women.
“As you know the abstract and deed work for the forty acres on which we built St. Helena was a tangled mess from the beginning. I thought it arose from papers lost in fires and the realignment of county boundaries in the 1880s and incompetent survey work. But that was not the case.”
The gym had a faint odor of varnish. Basketball goals were on either side, and a scoreboard gave witness to the home team’s last humiliating game. It was just the right height for hanging me.
I soldiered on.
“The long and the short of it is that Bishop Talesbury owns this land.” I paused. Now for the zinger. “He also owns the church because we built it on his land without his permission. I’m sure we can remove the furnishings, but as you all know, we were just getting started. There weren’t very many.”
“That’s not fair,” a woman called out. “Just not fair. My husband will be fit to be tied.” God knew none of this was my fault, but I could have bawled. Her husband had built the pews. Real pews with kneelers.
I recalled Edna’s words, her pride, “I wanted to kneel.” A few others nodded in sympathy, but most just sat there in silent bewilderment. All they had wanted was to build a church. Have a place of worship. A place of their own denomination.
“The pews aren’t permanently attached to the structure,” I said. “We can remove them.”
“To where?”
I couldn’t think fast enough.
Our barn? Some other barn?
“Why?”
“I beg your pardon,” I said.
“Why would he want that particular piece of land? It’s not worth the powder it would take to blow it up.”
“Because it’s his,” I said. “I doubt he can afford to buy another parcel of land.” I told them about his background and that he had come to the United States after horrendous experiences in Africa. I kept my face and my voice neutral when explaining his Deal lineage and how he happened to inherit the acreage. This was not an appropriate venue for politics. We had to keep the recall election separate.
I did not like the bishop, but I believed his intentions were clear. I was convinced he honestly wanted to provide shelter for children who had been through hell. The ladies brightened when I told them what Talesbury intended to do with the place.
“Again, it’s important for all of you to understand our legal situation. There is simply no recourse. We’re hosed.” I called for questions.
“Why?” asked the same women who had tried to pin me before. “Why is this such a catastrophe?”
Did I have to draw a picture? I groped for words.
“We have a priest,” she persisted. “We have a church. And we even have a mission project, right off the bat.”
Heads turned toward her. “Why wouldn’t this fellow want a nice little congregation? No need to run us off.” She turned looked up at the woman behind her. “Mabel, isn’t this man some of your kin? On your father’s side? Why don’t you talk to him? It’s not like anyone really owns a church anyway.”
A solution! Out of the clear blue sky. Thrilled, I took a deep breath. This could work. Chiding myself for underestimating Western Kansan’s resiliency and their ability to survive, I flashed a smile. Foolishly I thought it was that simple. The solution would be that simple. He could keep the damn land. He could keep the damn church. We would simply show up every Sunday.
A woman shot to her feet. “How can any of you even think of having anything to do with that evil man or want to support anything he touches? Have you forgotten his sermon?” Then she glared at Mabel Sidwell. “Don’t even think of it. I’m never going to set foot in that church again.”
Mabel Sidwell rose to her feet. “Now just a minute here, Lucy.” A large woman, she wore a fashionable jade green pantsuit with a peacock brooch. Her voice carried well. Her size, the flash of color, her precise diction added weight to her message. “I think you all know my nephew and a wonderful priest who graciously consented to honor our little congregation have been the victims of a vicious campaign.”
“Mabel, let’s leave politics out of this. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I say Lucy has a point. Who would want to go to church there?”
Several women spoke out at once. Then everything went South.
I pounded the gavel. “I came here today to give you a message. I have done just that. Here it is again. Bishop Talesbury owns all the land on which we built St. Helena. This was decided by the court. He owns the building. All assets not permanently attached will be returned to the donors.”
That said, I left the quarrelling assembly and got the hell out of Dodge.