Promise Canyon (8 page)

C
lay had stocked his small refrigerator and a cupboard with a few items for quick, easy meals, and he’d had dinner with Nate and Annie a couple of times, but by far the best tip he’d gotten since arriving in the area was about Jack’s Bar. Nathaniel mentioned that he and Annie met at Jack’s in Virgin River and enjoyed some of the most delectable dinners they’d ever had while taking care of a boxful of puppies…and falling in love. Since Clay had met Jack on his way into town, watching that group of men as they pulled the old pickup up the hill, he was anxious to give the bar a try. Clay wasted no time in getting over there to see what was on the menu.

The first revelation—there was no menu. Preacher served up one dinner item daily and decided what it would be based on whatever suited him that day. It was whispered to Clay that there were sometimes leftovers from previous nights, and nobody would take offense if he preferred those to the special of the day. But Clay was more than satisfied with any of Preacher’s dinners—the man knew what to do with a piece of meat. Jack proved a pleasant dinner companion, making introductions as
people wandered into the bar, then standing on the other side of the bar with his coffee while Clay ate.

By his third visit to Jack’s bar, Clay knew all the regulars. The local constable and Jack’s brother-in-law, Mike Valenzuela, dropped by frequently. Jack’s wife, the local midwife, Mel, would take a swing through before heading home from work. If she had a house call, she’d drop off their small children for Jack to tend, or she’d drop them at Preacher’s house to be tended by a sitter or Preacher’s wife, Paige. He saw the town minister again; Noah Kincaid made it a point to drop by and visit with folks. And there was Hope McCrea, town busybody, who stopped by almost daily for her shot of Jack Daniel’s.

“Do anything special?” Hope asked him right off.

“Special?” he asked, picking up his coffee. “I shoe horses. And do some other stable chores.”

She snorted, held up a finger to order her drink and shook a cigarette out of her pack. “Haven’t got any use for that,” she informed him.

“Lucky for me, Nathaniel Jensen does.”

“That who brought you to town? The vet?”

“Yes, ma’am. We go way back. And I have a sister in Grace Valley—Ursula Toopeek.”

“Is that a fact? I don’t know Mrs. Toopeek, but I’ve had a little traffic with the police chief.”

“Have a little trouble with the law?” he asked, the corners of his mouth twitching.

She grinned at him and pushed her heavy black-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose. “You should fit in around here. Just another smart-ass.”

Clay liked the cranky old woman. But theirs was not to be a lengthy relationship, it turned out. On his fourth
visit to Jack’s for dinner, Jack’s wife came into the bar. She jumped up on a bar stool without saying hello to anyone and, looking grimly serious, she said, “I have some sad news, Jack. Bruce was delivering mail to Hope McCrea and noticed some had piled up in her box. He walked around the house to see if anything seemed out of order…. He found her on the back porch.” A tear slid down Mel’s cheek. “She’s dead, Jack.”

He looked thunderstruck. “I wondered if she was okay—she hasn’t come by for a couple of days. Not that it’s totally unusual—sometimes days go by before we see her—especially when she’s got some project going on. But, man… Natural causes?”

“I guess you could say so,” Mel said with a sniff. She pulled a tissue out of her pocket. “It wasn’t a homicide, but she was sitting in her porch chair, her cigarette burned down to her fingertips. She was eighty, Jack. Bruce called the county coroner to pick her up, but I can’t think of any reason there would be an investigation.”

“Damn,” Clay said. “I liked her. She reminded me of some of my family.” They turned and looked at him. He shrugged. “I’d have taken her for at least ninety-five.” He turned to Mel and touched her arm gently. “You gonna be all right?”

“She brought me to Virgin River,” Mel informed him. “Well, she tricked me, but she got me here and for that I owe her a lot. If it wasn’t for Hope, I wouldn’t know my husband, wouldn’t have had my children.” She looked back at Jack. “I have even worse news. You’re going to have to go in that house. You’re probably the closest thing to family she’s got and someone has to go in, look around, figure out what’s to be done next. Hope would spin in her grave if that house was taken by the bank
or state for unpaid taxes. There must be a bankbook or will or something in there somewhere. If you can’t find anything, we should keep up the bills until we can figure something out.”

“Awww, Mel…” he said.

Clay shot him a look. “Did you just
whine?
”

“You gotta understand, Clay. I’m pretty sure that house is something out of a nightmare. I don’t think Hope threw anything away in at least fifty years.”

“When I got here and asked her if there was a better place to stay than the falling-down, leaky cabin she had arranged for me,” Mel said, “she said it would take her all night to clear a space on her couch for me. Jack’s right—it can’t be good. But she looked after this town. Likely she had some kind of plan. Maybe Jack can unearth a deed or strongbox or something. Or, like with old Doc Mullins when he went, at least a scrawled-out note of intentions.”

“Can’t the police go in there?” Jack asked.

“I think you should take the police, by all means. Your brother-in-law, Mike—local police. Take Preacher, too. I think Clay here might like to go along—Hope reminds him of family members.”

“Not enough for that,” Clay said.

“Gather your troops, Jack,” Mel said. “Go tell Preacher. Call Mike and Paul Haggerty. It wouldn’t hurt to have a minister along—give Noah a call—he’ll go with you. The house will keep till morning. It might scare the liver out of you at night.”

“Are you coming with me?”

She shook her head. “Not a chance. That place is bound to give us all bad dreams.”

Five men stood in the doorway of Hope’s house, which had not been locked. Mike Valenzuela, Paul Haggerty, Noah Kincaid, Preacher and Jack.

“Holy Mother of God,” Preacher said. “She really
didn’t
throw anything away.”

“I bet she could have been on that TV show,” Noah said. “You know the one—about the hoarders. Ellie loves that show.”

It turned out to be the predictable truth that Hope was a pack rat, but although her house—every single room of it—was stacked with things she’d saved, she had somehow never crossed the line into saving newspapers or empty cans and bottles. She might have saved a lot of useless stuff but at first glance it didn’t appear she’d saved garbage. And, to Hope’s credit, may she rest in peace, the house could be navigated easily enough. She’d made definite paths through the clutter.

“I’m just trying to figure out when she had the time to buy any of this stuff,” Jack said. “She was always working on a project, getting in people’s business or gardening. Anyone have any idea how many rooms we got here?”

“We’re gonna find out,” Paul said. “First thing to do, just take a visual inventory, get the lay of the land, and look for a place she might’ve stored vital papers—like a will. We’ll decide how to handle this mess later. I don’t think we can legally start sorting and pitching anyway. Thank God.”

Noah broke away from the group and walked through the living room, past junk stacked on both sides of the room, down a path in the dining room, toward the back of the house. The remaining four men very slowly
began to enter the room, gingerly lifting items to look underneath—a stray lamp shade, a few lamps without shades, a couple of unopened boxes shipped from Craft World, not one but two disconnected fax machines and a couple of outdated computer printers. There were stacks of mismatched dishes, paperbacks tossed everywhere, and—just as Mel said—underneath an enormous mound of sheets, towels and clothes was an old, purple velvet sofa.

Jack cautiously opened a tied-off garbage bag and peeked inside. “Anyone remember Hope ever wearing a ball cap?” he asked.

Heads were shaking—no.

He pulled one out of the bag. It was for the Denver Broncos. “There must be a hundred of ’em in here. But why?”

“Do you suppose this could be what we’re looking for?” Noah said from the dining room. He held a square metal strongbox. Written in marker on it, Vital Papers.

“Be damned,” Jack muttered. “How’d you go right to it?”

“I just tried to think about where she might spend the majority of her time,” Noah said with a shrug. “It sure wasn’t on the sofa. There’s a big kitchen back there—with a table, desk, computer and TV. Also a fantastic fireplace and big recliner—I think she worked in it, ate in it, slept in it. It was her office, bedroom and living room, I presume.”

“All right, gentlemen,” Mike said, heading for the dining table. “Let’s clear a space and see if we can find any pertinent information in that box.”

“You guys mind if I poke around a little?” Paul asked.
“I’d like to see how many rooms in this old house. How many stairwells, water closets, that sort of thing.”

“Why?” Jack asked, lifting a pile of cookie sheets and pots off the table and transferring them to another pile.

“Because I’m a builder, and a little curious,” Paul said. “This place is a wreck, no doubt, but have you noticed it doesn’t smell or anything? No cracks, no walls caved in. There aren’t any stains from mysterious leaks, no obvious mold in one of the dampest places on the planet, the paint is chipped and peeling here and there, the floor is scratched and scarred, but it’s quality wood and it’s level, not warped. I think maybe under all the junk there might be a good, solid old house. When was it built?”

“Not sure,” Jack said, moving a pile of towels and gardening books in one heap. He took a stack of coffee table books off a dining-room chair, placing them on the floor. “In fact, I’m not sure of anything. I didn’t know much about Hope, and to tell the truth I don’t know who did. I never heard her say anything about who her oldest friends were. She knew Doc Mullins a long time, I know that, but they mostly squabbled. And Doc said she’d been in this house forever, widowed for over thirty years.” He took a breath. “That’s not a lot to know about a person.”

“Did you ever ask?” Noah inquired.

“Sure, but she was stingy with personal information. She said she married young, never had children, that once there had been a lot of land under the house but she’d sold it off to neighbors who needed grazing and planting land. I’m a bartender, man. We lend an ear, but try not to pry.”

“You might want to practice up on that not prying part,” Preacher mumbled.

Jack glowered at him. “Hope just wanted her one drink and a little conversation. She wanted a little peace,” Jack said. Looking around the room, he added, “And who could blame her?”

“And she wanted to fix up the town,” Preacher put in, moving a badly tarnished silver tea service all the way into the kitchen. He came back directly. “I think she did that because she was bored, and because she thought she was about the oldest resident of this town and had a stake in it. You know—leaving it better than she found it.”

As Paul wandered off to check out the house, the men settled in at a now-cleared, round dining table. Noah pushed the strongbox toward Jack. He opened it as if expecting a bunch of coiled snakes to jump out. Then he flipped the lid all the way back. “Wow. Appears she had one area of neatness in her life. Files. Labels.” He pulled out one that clearly said Birth Certificate. Then he pulled out one that said Marriage License. He couldn’t resist—he opened the file. “Whoa. She was married in 1941. Either Hope was lying about her age or she was about ten years old.” Under the papers lay an old black-and-white photo, which he pulled out. “Jeez, she was a looker,” he said, passing it around. She was a beautiful young blonde wearing an elaborate satin gown and gauzy veil and she stood next to a
much
older man.

“Grab a look at that birth certificate, Jack,” Preacher said.

Jack did so and nearly blanched. “Good God, she
was older than she let on, born in 1925. She was…what…?”

“Eighty-six. Sixteen when she married,” Noah said, studying the photo. “And this guy, for a guy in ’41, I bet he’s at least fifty, which back then wasn’t considered young like it is now.”

“Fifty is considered young now?” Jack asked. “That’s encouraging…. Well, here’s a death certificate for the old boy. He died in…in… Here it is. He died in ’61. Fifty years ago. Hope was only…only…”

“Thirty-six,” Noah said.

“Are you going to keep doing that?” Jack asked irritably.

“At least until you can add and subtract faster,” the minister replied good-naturedly. He smiled at Jack.

Jack went through the files some more. One was labeled Deeds, one labeled Police Officer, one said Midwife. Jack peeked in that file—Hope’s contract with Mel, the position that brought his wife to Virgin River. Finally he passed a file that was labeled Will. “Oh, boy, here we go.” He pulled the folder and it was suspiciously thick. “This is a mess of papers.”

“Good,” Noah said. “She wouldn’t have any use for a lot of paperwork unless she had an idea what she wanted done with her remains and property.”

Jack didn’t feel like wasting time. He pushed the folder toward Noah. “Knock yourself out.” He passed the file labeled Deeds to Preacher. “Have a look in here. It’s probably records of property she sold off, that kind of thing.”

Noah chuckled at him and began leafing through the papers. “Interesting,” he muttered. Upstairs came the sound of a few thumps; Paul was pounding on walls to
locate studs. “Amazing,” Noah said. Paul knocked on more walls. “Well, I’ll be…” More knocking sounded from upstairs.

“Care to share anytime soon, Your Worship?” Jack asked.

Noah smiled. “Mrs. McCrea had an attorney—Jacob Stanley of Eureka—and set up a Virgin River Trust so that whatever she left behind wouldn’t be eaten up in taxes but could benefit the town.”

Preacher was stacking up papers and spreading out a map that had been neatly folded in the file.

“Anything else?” Jack asked. “Any idea what she wants done with her possessions? Or her remains, for that matter?”