Necessary Evil (6 page)

Mrs. Fontaine sent Alice on ahead to the
car, then she turned to me.

“I suppose you expect an apology,” she
said. She was in the doorway, the falling sun outlining her thin profile. She
looked both impressive and brittle.

I was honest. I told her I wasn’t, but I
offered her one. She brushed it off and looked at me with scorn.

“I don’t allow people I hire to speak to
me the way you did,” she said. “I would withdraw my daughter from this place
and insist on a full refund, except for the fact that she really loves that girl,
Lindsay. So we’ll keep our account with you. For now. But I expect better
service in the future, Miss Warwick, or I promise you, both Alice and my sister
will find other stables and tell others why. Do you understand me?”

It was impossible to misunderstand her.
Oh, how I wanted to fling the offer back in her face, to tell her to take her
little girl and the two overindulged horses and find some other stable stupid
enough to put up with her. I wanted to tell her that she could tell the world
what she pleased, that it would take more than her insignificant voice to worry
us. I wanted to hold my head up high and put her highness back into her place.

The problem was I knew exactly what her
position was. Mrs. Fontaine might be more trouble than eight of my other
clients put together, but I needed her business. Alice was one of a tight group
of girls, all of whom had signed up for summer camps. If Alice left, that was
bad enough, but I knew that she’d take others with her, and the farm couldn’t
handle it.

Mrs. Fontaine was implying that I couldn’t
do without her business, and she was right.

So I drew a deep breath, and I threw up a
prayer, and I looked her in the eye.

“Thank you, Mrs. Fontaine,” I said.

It was the hardest thing I’d ever had to
say, but that was nothing compared with watching her draw herself up and stride
off, the warrior triumphant. The proud Chase girl had joined her in battle and
lost on her own ground. There would be no dealing with Mrs. Fontaine in the
future. She knew her place and mine, and I was done.

But there was nothing I could do about it,
so I cleaned her daughter’s fancy tack and put it on her specially marked peg.

It was the least a peasant could do.

I entered the house, dirty, defeated, and
so tired that I almost forgot to leave my boots by the back door, as Aunt
Susanna had requested so many times. I called out to her as I untied them, but
there was no answer. I went into the kitchen and flipped on the lights.

It was neat, with only a few dishes in the
sink, and nothing prepared on the counter. I was famished, so I quickly washed
my hands in the sink and pulled open the fridge. It was a discouraging sight:
sparsely populated with eggs, a quart of milk, and a few limp vegetables. There
weren’t even any left-overs.

I sighed and slammed it shut, then went
over to the bread box. Two stale crusts of wheat bread lay dejectedly on their
sides. I’d meant to go to the grocery store, but the workload had put the need
out of my mind. I wondered why Aunt Susanna hadn’t gone, but realized that this
was my week to do the shopping. So this was my fault.

I let the cover to the bread box fall shut
and rubbed my eyes as my stomach growled. With a grunt, I pulled the cover open
again and shoved one of the pieces of bread in my mouth. It was like eating
sawdust.

Hopefully, Aunt Susanna had some ideas for
dinner, because I was fresh out.

“Aunt Susanna!” I called again, through my
mouthful.

Odd. She was usually in the kitchen at
this time of night, preparing something, even if it wasn’t her turn to cook.

I went to the hall and called again, but
as I did so, the wall calendar caught my attention. Today’s date was circled in
red, with the words,
Class, 7pm,
written in my aunt’s hand.

She wasn’t even here. I was on my own for
dinner.

I might have sworn aloud then. I probably
did. I don’t swear under normal circumstances, but I was tired and the incident
with Mrs. Fontaine was still fresh on my mind. I had been hoping to discuss it
with Aunt Susanna, but now it would have to wait until she returned and I was
not happy about that.

I turned to go back into the kitchen to
see if there were any frozen dinners left in the fridge, when something else
caught my eye. The light to the living room was on.

Since becoming the one responsible for them,
I was somewhat obsessive about the electric bills. If a room wasn’t in active
use, I insisted that the lights be turned off. My aunt had objected a little,
saying that it made the house seem even emptier than it was, but even she had
to concede that it was better to be in a dark house than have none at all. She
was usually pretty good about turning things off, but if she was in hurry, like
she’d probably been tonight in trying to get to class on time, she’d forget.

I sighed again. It seemed, in my childish
piquancy, that everything was conspiring against me. I lumbered down the hall,
taking another bite of the bread that remained in my hand.

The light switch is far enough in the room
that you have to step into it in order to reach it, which I did. I was so
focused on the bread that I didn’t see anything else as I flipped the light
switch.

“Hey!”

The protest erupted from somewhere in the
darkness in front of me. It was a male voice, one I didn’t recognize in a room
that was supposed to be empty. I choked, but my hand was still on the switch
and I had the presence of mind to flip it again as I coughed.

The warm yellow light infused the old
living room with its battered furniture and out-of-style wallpaper with an
almost neighborly sense of welcome. It was more welcoming, I’m sure,
than
the startled look I was giving the person at the couch.

A man sprang up from it, one hand still
grasping the book he’d been reading, while the other was pulling off his large
glasses. He was dressed in a well-fitting, but somewhat worn brown jacket over
pressed pants that looked as though they were of good quality. A briefcase,
also well-used, was on the floor by his leather-clad feet, and his hair, dark
and thick, was neatly brushed and groomed.

“I
beg
your pardon,” he said, haughtily.
“I was reading in here. Next time you might want to look in a room before you
turn the lights off.”

He spoke in a clipped tone, clearly
annunciating every word, like a seasoned Shakespearean actor. I was too
startled to answer, and we looked each other up and down in silence for a
moment.

His appearance matched his tone, I
decided. He looked like a fussy sort of a man, one accustomed to a certain high
manner of living without the income to maintain it.

The most striking thing about him was the color
of his shirt - a dark, almost jewel-toned orange that set off his hair and dark
eyes. While the rest of his outfit was the typical stuffy-professor look you’d
expect in a movie or play, the shirt played against type. I wonder what it said
about the stranger’s character.

He held the coffee table copy of Uncle
Michael’s self-published book,
A Short History of the Chase Family,
and
if his finger positioning was anything to go by, he was halfway through it. His
face was young, probably younger than he actually was. The result, I thought,
of a life of relative ease.

Oh, Lord, just what I need. A male version
of Louisa Fontaine in my life.

The thought relaxed me a little. Whatever
this man was doing here, it was not to cause me physical harm.

What he thought of me, I couldn’t really
say. I hadn’t changed out of my work clothes, except for taking off my boots,
so I must have presented a bedraggled appearance: dirty jeans and a
sweat-stained plaid shirt thrown over a tank top. My mismatched stockings (I’d
been putting off laundry, too) were hardly sophisticated, my hair was pulling
loose out of my pony tail, and I still clutched a piece of wadded up week-old
bread in my hand.

I looked a sight and I knew it, but when
his expression changed ever so slightly to one that I took as distaste, my
temper flared.

“
What
are you doing in here?” I
demanded.

He didn’t answer right away. He looked me
up and down again, and then in the face.

“Madeleine Warwick?” he inquired, and I
got the distinct impression that he was hoping I’d say no.

It pleased me to disappoint him. I folded
my arms across my chest. “That’s me,” I said. “And who are you?”

He eyed me with more interest then, but he
didn’t answer. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. He took
a step over to hand it to me, and I noted that he was a few inches taller than
me. The scent of cologne, earthy and light, clung about him.

“You don’t answer your emails,” he said
lightly.

I snatched the card from his grasp. “I
answer the important ones.”

I didn’t wait for his response. I studied
the card, frowning to focus. I was so upset that my hands were shaking, and my
annoyance at my overreaction only made it worse. It took me a little time
before I made out what I was supposed to be reading.

“Professor Gregory Randall?” I asked, and
looked up.

He’d put his over-sized glasses back on
and was pouring over the pages of Uncle Michael’s book, but he glanced at me.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, before
looking back down again.

Irritated, I looked at the card again and
said, “Hadley University? Where’s that? I’ve never heard of a
Hadley
University.”

That got him to look up from the book.

“It’s in Holbein,” he said, with a wounded
look - as though I ought to have recognized it right off the bat. “In the heart
of beautiful western Massachusetts.”

“Sorry.” I handed the card back. “Doesn’t
ring a bell. Is it one of those new, online universities?”

“Certainly not!” he said, accepting the
card and looking at the face of it, as though to make sure I hadn’t changed
anything. “Hadley University was established in 1914, and boasts an illustrious
alumni and a sterling academic reputation.” Then he shrugged as he put the card
back in his pocket. “Don’t feel too badly, though. We are a small, but growing
community.”

“How lovely,” I said dryly, and one of his
eyebrows raised in acknowledgement. “And may I be so bold as to inquire what
brought one of the faculty from such
an
… an
august
establishment to trespass on my property?”

Even as I said the word, “trespass”, I
experienced a clutch in my heart. Trespassers on the Chase Property usually
only had one object in mind. If this bookworm was expecting permission to hunt
for buried treasure, he was going to be in for a shock.

Professor Randall looked wounded again. “I
am not
trespassing
,” he emphasized, pulling his glasses off as he spoke.
“Your aunt let me in. She was in a hurry to get out the door to class or
something, but she invited me to wait here to talk to you. If you don’t believe
me, why don’t you call her and ask her. Trespass, indeed!”

He looked
very
put out and, without knowing why, I believed him. It was definitely something
that Aunt Susanna would do: let a complete stranger sit alone in the house
while I was unaware in the barn.

I sighed and decided that I probably was
coming on a little too strong. After all, he hadn’t meant to frighten me – Aunt
Susanna should have sent me a text or something before she left.

“Poor choice of words on my part, I
guess,” I said. “What do you want, Professor?”

He gestured to my recliner. “Have a seat?”

“In these clothes?”

Professor Randall looked me over again,
and nodded. “Perhaps you’re right. I can wait if you’d like to…”

“What I’d like to do,” I interrupted,
trying to keep my tone light while still getting my point across, “is shower,
eat, and go to bed as soon as possible. I don’t want to be rude, Professor, but
I’d appreciate it if you’d get right to the point.”

I might have added,
So
I can throw you out on your ear and get on with my life,
but I wanted to be
sure of his intentions first. Besides, something told me that he had prepared
himself for a hostile reception, a thought that made me feel even more
frustrated.

I’m not a tyrant – I’m just tired of
people trying to get rich off of my family’s history.

But maybe I had this guy wrong. Maybe he
didn’t care about the treasure at all. Maybe he was a historian who was looking
to do a proper history on the family, someone that I could trust with the
family documents, someone who could set the record straight, who’d treat us
with the dignity and respect that is the right of every decent, upright family…

Then he said, “Very well. Briefly, I want
permission to search your family estate for the remains of the McInnis
treasure.”

With that pin-prick, my balloon deflated
with a violent pop. I sagged against the wall in disappointment, a gesture he
took no notice of. He had dropped back to the couch, pulled up his briefcase,
and was working the old-fashioned combination lock as he spoke.

“I’m a historian, a researcher by trade,”
he said conversationally. “My preferred concentration is early United States
Colonial and Republican history, but at the moment, I am involved in writing a
biography on a lesser known Civil War participant, whose name I’m sure you wouldn’t
be familiar with. In conducting my research, I crossed paths with Professor
Maddox…”

“Professor Maddox!” I exclaimed, in spite
of myself.

He nodded, pulling a sheaf of papers from
out of his case. “Yes. We’d worked together before, back when I was an undergraduate
student at Braeburn. My research has lead me to some work that he’d been doing
before his death. His widow was kind enough to let me go through his papers.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered a connection to the Chase family and the
McInnis affair.”

As he spoke, his tone slipped into an
authoritative cadence, like that of a professional lecturer going over an
often-used lesson. My pulse quickened, but I kept calm. He was shuffling
through the papers, so if my face was flushed, he didn’t notice it. Randall
didn’t see my eye roll, either. He looked at me a second too late.

“You don’t say,” I sighed.

The professor frowned, and turned back to
his papers. “Yes – remarkable, I thought. It seems my subject had a strong
connection to one of the characters in the case. Naturally, when I began to
look into the theft, it piqued my curiosity. As you probably know, unsolved
cases are something of a hobby of mine.”

“They are?”

He didn’t hear. “My book is nearly finished.
The final piece is this McInnis case, which I can only solve here, where the
treasure disappeared.”

“I think you mean Baltimore,” I said.

Again he looked at me and again he grinned
- a sly, unsettling expression.

“Yes…” he said and gestured to the pages
in front of him. “I’ve been working on this only for a few weeks now and most
of the material available is… Dubious to say the least, but some aspects are
clear. There was, among other things, a silver spoon set that disappeared from
the McInnis household at the same time Alexander Chase and Beaumont left his
employ. Beaumont was a ruffian, but there’s no indication that Alexander Chase
was ever in trouble with the law beyond a drunken-disorderly. The idea that he
would steal from his employer seems to be out of character. Are you sure you
don’t want to sit, Miss Warwick? You look tired.”