Unexpected Riches (Bellingwood Book 13) (14 page)

"Polly owns the bakery here and one of her best friends owns the coffee shop," Andy said.

"Do you own everything in town?" Tallie asked.

"Pretty much," Beryl said. "We're all worried that we're going to have to become tenant farmers just to eke out our existence."

Before Polly could respond, Sylvie placed a platter filled with muffins, scones and tarts in the middle of the table.

"Those don't look like mistakes," Lydia said. "They look wonderful."

Sylvie shrugged. "Some of them are lopsided and others didn't fit in the display. Enjoy."

"Enough chit chat," Beryl said. She shook her hands in front of her. "I have things that I need to tell you all and questions that Tallie might be able to answer. Eat your food and be quiet, okay?"

Lydia lifted a tote bag into her lap. "Pay no attention to the crazy rude lady," she said to Tallie. "Beryl's just excited."

"You bet I'm excited. I put on my big girl pants and went over to Melvin’s house to get those boxes of family stuff. I started digging into them last night. Nobody has ever thrown things away. There are so many stories in here, I'm nearly busting at the seams," Beryl said. She reached into the tote bag and drew out an old, old magazine, then placed it on the table and opened it.

"Isn't this great?" she asked.

Polly nodded. "I suppose so. What am I looking at?"

"The story, you ninny."

"You want me to read it?"

Beryl huffed out a breath and rolled her eyes. "No. Just look at the author's name."

"Duke Leo Dorchester." Polly looked around to see if she was missing something. Nobody was responding. "Who is that?"

Beryl tapped the author's name several times. "That's Pearl Carter. She was Jedidiah's daughter." She reached back into the tote on Lydia's lap. "She was an authoress, but because no one thought women could do anything worthwhile, the stories she wrote were submitted and sold under a pen name." She spread photos out on the table. "That's Pearl with her father, Jedidiah."

Polly picked up the photo that Beryl indicated and passed it to Tallie.

"This picture is of the three brothers before Lester left for the West Coast. Jedidiah is on the left, Cyrus in the middle and Lester is on the right," Beryl pushed another picture to Polly. "This is Cyrus standing in front of his bank. I can't believe I have all of these things. I had no idea."

"Weren't these used during the centennial?" Andy asked.

Beryl glared at her. "That was fifty years ago. I was too young to know what we had." She took a book out of the tote, opened it and pointed to the handwritten list of numbers in columns. "I think this was Pearl's account book. There are notes all the way through about how she spent her money. That old Jedidiah was a gambler and a thief. She kept paying his debts." Beryl flipped a page. "And look at this. She writes about giving her checks to her uncle so he could make the deposit in Duke Dorchester's name. What a riot!"

"This is pretty cool," Polly said. "I can't believe you have all of this history. I know practically nothing about my family."

"My family has this kind of stuff too," Tallie said. "We have letters that Cyrus sent to Lester."

"You do? I'd love to see those sometime. We should scan things and exchange them." Beryl nearly lifted out of her seat she was so excited.

"There's a series of them where Cyrus is frustrated with his brother." Tallie nodded as she flipped through the pages of Pearl's book. "He wrote about Pearl paying her father's debts. I think he was a horse thief, too." She put the book down and slid it to Sylvie. "I'm pretty sure he robbed the bank."

Beryl had been about to say something and she stopped. "He robbed his brother's bank?" She took a breath. "Wait. Don't go anywhere. Don't say anything." Beryl took the tote out of Lydia's lap and dumped it on the table in front of her, then riffled through the papers until she pulled out a very old newspaper article. "Here it is. This was the article about the robbery, but it didn't say who the thief was. Just that they got gold."

"Hah," Polly said. "I wonder if they ever got it back. If Cyrus knew his brother stole it, surely he could force him to return it."

Tallie held her hand out for the article and Beryl handed it to her. "The letters never mentioned the gold being returned. They searched everywhere for that gold and didn't find it. Cyrus was angry because Jedidiah caused the family so much pain."

"What do you suppose happened to it?" Lydia asked.

"Cyrus thought he buried it and passed away before things died down enough for him to dig it up and spend it."

"He buried it?" Beryl asked. "Where?"

"Somewhere around Bellingwood," Tallie said. She put the article back into the center of the table. "That's why Ethan came up here. He thought he had an idea where he might find Jedidiah's gold."

"No kidding," Beryl said. "Well doesn't that just take the cake. Buried treasure in Bellingwood. How did he know where to look?"

Tallie shook her head. "I'm not sure. A few cousins looked through the letters at Thanksgiving and laughed about how funny it would be if it were really true. Ethan was elected to come up here and look around, just to see if there was any possibility it being true. He'd done a little research about the land that Jedidiah and Cyrus Carter owned and planned to look through abstracts to see if there was any other land with their name on it."

"Why didn't he ask for help from one of us?" Beryl asked.

"I don't know," Tallie said with a shrug. "I doubt that he even thought about Jedidiah's or Cyrus's descendants still living here. It really was just a lark. And then," she sighed, "it wasn't."

Sylvie spoke quietly. "Do you think one of those cousins came up with him? Maybe they're involved in his death."

"I don't know," Tallie said. "The whole thing got really big, really fast. Pretty soon everyone was talking about it. But Ethan never told us that someone else was here with him. As far as we knew, he came by himself."

"Did you tell all of this to Aaron?" Polly asked.

"Most of it. He knows about the treasure hunt."

Beryl looked at her. "Have you talked to any of these cousins since Thanksgiving?"

"No. I thought it all was absurd and told Ethan to just let it go." She shook her head. "And you know how it is with family. Once a year whether you want to or not and then if you never talk to them again, it's too soon. Thanksgiving, weddings and funerals are about all we do anymore."

"Most families don't even do Thanksgiving," Polly said.

"Tallie Carter?"

Everybody turned at the voice calling Tallie's name.

"Elise?" Polly said, standing up.

"Is it really you, Tallie?"

Tallie looked at Polly in confusion and then stood up and waited for Elise to join them. "Debra? What are you doing in Bellingwood?"

Polly took Elise's arm. "Debra, is it?"

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"So, how do you know Tallie?" Polly asked Elise, pulling another chair over to the table.

Elise looked at the group, at Tallie and then Polly. "I. Uhhh. I."

"Dad introduced us. She used to eat at their restaurant all the time," Tallie said. "Debra bought two of my paintings." She looked at Elise. "I didn't know you'd left Albuquerque."

"Tallie is a very talented artist," Elise said. "I haven't unpacked any of my things from that time yet. It's all still in storage." She turned to the counter. "I should get my coffee and..." Elise turned back to the front door. "No, I should just go. It was nice to see you all."

Polly caught up to her. "Hey. You don't need to run off. It's okay."

"But she doesn't know who I am."

"A professor?"

"No, that I was hiding. What's she doing here anyway?" Elise shook herself. "This is just too strange. I can't even think."

"Slow down. It's okay. Tallie came up because her brother Ethan was killed. You know, the body I found? And she's some very far detached shirt tail relation of Beryl's. They're talking about family connections from when Bellingwood was founded. You're safe."

"That’s all?"

Polly took her arm. "That’s all. It's a crazy coincidence that you two both ended up here, but how wonderful for you to meet someone again from that life. Right?"

"Right," Elise said, clearly not ready to accept it. "She and Beryl are related?"

"I know! Can you believe it?”

Elise glanced at the table. "That's a lot of people."

"You know everyone," Polly said. "And it's interesting stuff. Tallie and Beryl are talking about a bank robbery and treasure. It might be buried around Bellingwood somewhere."

"Just for a little while." Elise let Polly take her arm and lead her to the table. "I'm sorry," she said.

Tallie patted the chair and said, "How did you get to Bellingwood and did I hear Polly call you Elise?"

"It's a long story," Elise replied. "Maybe sometime later. But yes, they know me in Bellingwood as Elise. You might as well call me that."

"Crazy." Tallie blinked her eyes. "Somehow I feel as if I've been transported into a story and I've lost control of it. I meet Beryl and find out that Jedidiah was her ancestor. Then out of the blue, someone I knew in New Mexico is here with a different name. Is it always like this in Bellingwood?"

Lydia laughed out loud. "Not until Polly moved in. We blame all of our interesting tales on her. Bellingwood was quiet and boring until she bought that old schoolhouse. We turned into the most fascinating place in the region. She finds dead bodies, drags us into wild mysteries, and now we’re looking at a treasure hunt."

"We are not," Polly said, as firmly as she could. "We are not getting caught up in this. Ethan Carter was killed and then Tallie was shot at." She glared at Lydia. "Your husband would be mad at me if we did something as crazy as that. And besides, we don't even know where to start."

"Ethan's body was found at the family cemetery," Beryl said. "We should start looking there."

Andy shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense. That cemetery didn't exist when Jedidiah was alive. He would have hidden the gold some place that he could easily put his hands on it. Or at least some place that made sense to him." She pointed at the stack of things Beryl had put on the table. "Is there any record of the land that he or Cyrus owned?"

"Not in here," Beryl said. "This is only a few of the things that I got from my brother. I started looking through the first box last night." She stared at Polly, daring her to say anything. "And then I was interrupted, so I put the rest aside."

Polly looked away. She wasn't going to tell Beryl's secrets even though she had no idea what the woman was hiding.

"Maybe we should have a party at your house," Sylvie said. "I'm up for one of those. We can go through the boxes and see if there's anything more in them."

Beryl shook her head. "I can't right now. I'm sorry."

"What do you mean you can't? Is your house a mess? You know that we don't care." Lydia turned concerned eyes to her friend. "Have the kittens wrecked things? It's okay. All of that can be replaced."

"How many boxes do you have?" Polly asked.

Beryl's face had grown more and more drawn as Lydia pressed, but she smiled at Polly. "Three more and a big leather satchel filled with photographs. You have to realize that our family saved everything."

"Do you want to pack them up and bring them over to Sycamore House? We can spread out on the conference room table."

"I could do that. Maybe not tonight, but tomorrow night." Beryl looked at Tallie. "How long are you staying in Bellingwood?"

Tallie shrugged. "People keep asking me that. I don't know. I don't want to leave without Ethan, but I didn't think about how long it would take before the sheriff released his body to be cremated."

Polly sighed. "I can't believe we're doing this. Lydia, if your husband dumps me in a snowbank, it's your fault."

"Not mine," Lydia said. "Andy's. She's the one who wants to see land records."

"Hey," Andy exclaimed. Then she smiled. "You're right. I do. But doesn't this sound interesting? I'll do some digging at the library this afternoon while I'm there."

"Okay then," Polly said. "We're having a party at Sycamore House tomorrow night."

"I have another copy of the letters between Cyrus and Lester," Tallie said quietly. "I don't know what happened to Ethan's set, but when we got the call that he'd been killed, I thought maybe someone here could help me figure out why."

"Has Aaron said anything about finding Ethan's things yet?" Polly asked Lydia.

Lydia smiled. "Not to me, but that isn't surprising. You should be the one to ask him. He tells you more about the cases he's working on than he does me."

"Do we know if Cyrus's bank continued through the years?" Sylvie asked. "If it still exists, they might have some historical information, too."

Beryl sat back. "I should know this. It would have been part of the centennial." She started cackling. "Don't you just want to laugh at the craziness of this? Me! Part of an exciting Bellingwood history." She could barely contain herself. "All of those prissy little old ladies who think I'm beneath them and I'm about to prove them absolutely right. My great, great whatever grandfather robbed the bank. His daughter wrote stories under a pseudonym and we've only just begun to dig. I'm bringing bottles and bottles of wine tomorrow night. You'd better have your menfolk around to help unload my car, Miss Polly."

"Since your room was shot up at the hotel, where are you staying, Tallie?" Lydia asked.

"I don't know," Tallie said. "I spent the night at Polly's, but I can't do that to her family very long." She let out a breath. "I don't even have a car right now. I just don't want to think about it."

Polly finally came to a decision. "You can stay in the addition of Sycamore House. Elise is in one of the upstairs rooms and Camille is in the other, leaving the two downstairs rooms available. Since your car won’t be parked out front, no one will know you’re there. You'll be as safe as anywhere."

"That has to be really expensive," Tallie said.

"No more so than the room at the hotel," Polly said. "We'll work it out."

Andy was the first to stand up. "If I'm doing research at the library, I want to start now," she said. "I'll bring ..." Andy paused and looked at Sylvie. "It seems ridiculous to offer cookies or anything baked with this girl involved."

Sylvie shook her head. "Stop it. Bring whatever you want. Why don't I make ..."

"No," Lydia interrupted. "You bake and work all day in a kitchen. You take tomorrow night off. I'll make an enchilada casserole. Andy, you bring a vegetable side or salad. Polly, you've got dessert and Beryl is bringing wine." She looked at Elise and Tallie. "You both are more than welcome to eat with us. There is always too much food."

"If I can use a microwave, I have a great recipe for queso," Tallie said.

Elise smiled. "I won't be able to come, though this all sounds insanely exciting. I have to teach a class."

Sylvie dropped her hands on the table. "I'm bringing a loaf of my sourdough bread. Do you want to argue with me?" She grinned at Lydia.

"Nope. Not today." Lydia reached over and hugged her. "Do you remember that party we had at Beryl's house? You went to so much work with those amazing little dessert treats. And now look at you and all of this. I'm so proud." She stood up. "I need to take off, too, but I'm looking forward to spending time with you all tomorrow night. This is more fun than it should be."

"I should get back to work," Sylvie said, standing up. "There haven't been any explosions from the kitchen or desperate pleas for attention." She paused for effect. "Yet."

Beryl sat back as her friends left. "It's just us'ns now."

"That's a little scary," Polly said. Then she turned to Elise. "So ... Debra?"

"It was one of my identities," Elise said. "We had to change it twice because they thought I'd been compromised. I spent quite a bit of time in a little town between Taos and Albuquerque."

"There was some hot guy that you showed up with every once in a while," Tallie said. "What happened to him?"

Polly smirked. "Hot guy?"

Elise shook her head, her face flushed with embarrassment. "It was just the marshal. No big deal."

Tallie touched Elise's arm. "You really have to tell me what's going on. Were you in witness protection or something?"

"Yes and I'm glad to tell you about it." Elise looked up at the clock. "But I need to leave. I was going to spend this time preparing for my next class."

"I'm sorry," Polly said.

" Don't be sorry," Elise replied with a laugh. "It's fun to get caught up in someone else's mystery. But if I hurry, I can duck into my office for some last minute prep time. These kids keep me on my toes."

"Dun, dun, dun." Beryl intoned, leaning forward. "And then there were three."

"You really connected with Pearl Carter, didn't you," Polly said.

Beryl nodded. "To think that there was an independent young woman all those years ago who didn't fit into normal expectations of society. Why, I'll bet she even wore long pants when she worked outside. Such scandal!"

"It's interesting that she's also named for a gemstone." Polly creased her forehead. "How did your parents come up with your name?"

"There was another Beryl Carter. She was a great aunt of my dad's." Beryl shook her head. "I think I have a strange family. Is yours this odd, Tallie?"

"Probably. Aren’t everybody's families a little odd?" Tallie smiled. "My dad's family is big. He's in the middle of nine and his father had six brothers and sisters. I have thirty-five first cousins so it's chaos when we all get together."

"You still do that?" Beryl asked.

"Every Thanksgiving. No debate. Grandma put her foot down and doesn't put up with much argument. The only way you can get out of Thanksgiving dinner is if you are in the hospital. Even then, she expects a doctor's note."

"I guess it keeps you all in touch with each other," Polly said.

Tallie rolled her eyes. "Whether we like it or not. Actually, we're pretty close. Everybody lives in the Southwest. A few families ended up in Texas and Oklahoma, but when Grandma expects us to show up, we just do."

"Did you ever contact your aunt about that family tree information?" Polly asked Beryl.

"I called her," Beryl said. "She got all judgmental about me finally paying attention to family history. Like everybody in the world wants to dig into the past. Some people do and that's great. But she more or less told me that it wasn't fair of me to benefit from all of her work if I wasn't going to participate in the work."

"I'm pretty sure that is exactly opposite of the purpose of genealogists," Polly said. "They do it because they love the search and once they put the puzzle pieces together, it's fun to share."

Beryl dropped her head and banged it twice on the table. "I’m going to visit her tomorrow. Does anyone want to ride over to Boxholm with me?"

"I will," Tallie said. "I'd love to spend the day with you."