Hanged by a thread, p.14
Hanged by a Thread, page 14
“No, my other son.” Mrs. Davenport glared at me.
I wasn’t about to get into a fight right here on the lawn of the Taylor House with the most influential women of Octonia watching, but I also wasn’t going to back down. “Oh, I see, Celeste worked there. Very good. So did she get you a good bargain?” I turned my gaze back to the rest of the group, hoping that someone would step up and answer to shut Mrs. Davenport down.
A woman who looked both ancient and completely nonplussed by this conversation spoke and said, “Celeste asked her boss to donate the printing, and he readily agreed. It was a profoundly generous gesture on both of their parts.” She smiled at me sweetly and then glared at Mrs. Davenport.
I felt my heart leap. Celeste had allies in the garden club, and somehow, that meant all the world to me in that moment. “That’s great to know. Thank you. You must have been so proud, Mrs. Davenport.” I couldn’t help myself.
Creedence Davenport looked like she had swallowed something very sour, but she didn’t reply.
“Did Celeste attend the tour that year?” I asked the woman who had told me about the donation.
Before she could answer, another woman in a lime-green blouse that paired wonderfully with her light-brown skin said, “I’m afraid she wasn’t invited.” She glanced over at Mrs. Davenport, and I felt the hostility amp up a notch. These women clearly were not all Mrs. Davenport allies.
Another tiny woman in a pink sweater set said, “You have to understand. We didn’t want a scene.”
“You mean, you didn’t want Celeste to come as herself,” a robust-looking woman with the hands of a true gardener said. “You wanted her to dress as a man.”
“She was a man,” Mrs. Davenport screeched as she rose from her chair.
I stared at Creedence and felt both pity and rage toward her. It would have been so much easier in every way if she had just accepted who her daughter was, but instead, still, five years after her death, she was fighting to hold onto her false understanding of her child. It was deeply heartbreaking and infuriating.
Beside me, I felt my dad stand. “How sad,” was all he said and then he walked toward the back of the lawn.
I turned to the group and thanked them before following my father. As I hurried to catch up to him, I thought of all the ways he had supported me, even when I did an about-face in my career, even when my marriage fell apart, even when I had to raise my young son mostly on my own. He had always let me be who I was, and once again, I was struck by how much a gift he had given me.
As I reached Dad, I heard footsteps join us, and the true gardener picked up our pace as we moved toward the slave quarter. “Do you want to see it?” she asked, pulling a key from her pocket.
“I’d love to,” I said, “if it’s not too much trouble.”
“This is my house, and I like when people want to see more than my wallpaper,” she said with a smile.
I smiled back. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Taylor.”
“Ms. Please. My wife and I prefer our marital status not define us.” She glanced back at the woman in the lime-green blouse and smiled.
“I prefer Ms., too,” I said and then turned to Dad. “You okay with a little more time here?”
“As long as I’m away from that woman, I’ve got all the time in the world,” he said.
“Amen to that,” Ms. Taylor chimed as she unlocked the door.
Inside, the room was filled with sunbeams, and the dust motes danced in them. The space was small and featured a beautiful stone fireplace. A well-worn ladder stretched up to the sleeping loft. It was definitely a slave quarter.
“Thank you,” I said. “Do you know anything about the people who lived here?”
“Funny you should ask,” Ms. Taylor said as she leaned against the ladder. “I’ve just hired a historian to find out that information. Shall I keep you posted?”
“Oh yes, please,” I said.
“Take your time,” she said. “I should get back to the meeting now that I’ve cooled down.”
Dad shook her hand as he left and said, “Thank you, Hermie.” And she gave him a quick hug before marching back across the lawn.
“You know Ms. Taylor?” I said as I studied the plaster on the wall and noted the horse hair still protruding from it.
“We went to school together. She was always very strong.” He looked out the window back toward the circle of women. “But then I suppose she had to be.”
I nodded. “Hermie?”
“Short for Hermione.” He smiled. “Her parents were very interested in Greek history.”
“So not Harry Potter then?” I teased.
He rolled his eyes and climbed the ladder to the loft.
12
When I got to the station to pick up Sawyer, I found him sleeping peacefully in the jail cell. Officer Winslow smiled and said, “He insisted. Said he was going to jail for hitting his Baba.”
I laughed. “He plays that way a lot, but now we’re going to have to up our game. Not sure the pantry is going to stand up as a jail against an actual cell.” I watched my son for a moment to see. “Officer Winslow, do you mind letting me know when he wakes up? I need to talk to Santiago.”
“Of course. It’s kind of soothing to hear his little breaths over there,” she said. “And please, call me Savannah. I think we’re past the need for formalities”
“Savannah, then. Thanks.” I smiled as I passed her and decided I would ask Lucille if she could make her some of her famous shortbread. This woman had helped me more times than I could count, and I owed her. Someday I’d be able to bake my own thank you’s, but until tiny hands let me produce more than very simple drop cookies, Lucille was happy to help.
I knocked on the door of Santiago’s office, and he invited me in with a hearty “Welcome.”
“Did you know it was me?” I asked when I came in. “That was a warm welcome for someone with bad news.”
He smiled, walked over, and closed the door behind me. “Winslow texted that you were here, so I assumed.” He gave me a quick hug and returned behind his desk.
I sat down across from him and said, “I wanted to tell you about the Garden Club meeting while it was fresh in my mind.”
“Great,” he said, “and I have a couple of updates for you, too.”
“I get updates now,” I said with a twinkle in my eye.
“You do . . . a perk of the relationship.” He winked. “You first.”
I told him about the meeting, about how Celeste had asked Robard to print the materials for free, and about the hostility amongst the group members. “I think Mrs. Davenport might have overestimated the value of prejudice in her election run.”
“Oh, I hope you’re right,” he said. “And that’s good info, and it makes sense with what Robard told me this morning.”
I sat up straighter. “You talked to him?”
“He came in this morning,” he said. “He’d heard about the shrine and was really upset. Said he couldn’t believe someone would have the audacity to break in again. He’s having the locks changed.”
I thought about that a minute. “What did you think of his reaction?” I wondered if this was a case of protesting too much or genuine concern. “I mean the building is about to be torn down, so changing the locks seems like, well, a little extreme.”
“That was my first take, too, but then he mentioned the chance that someone could get really hurt and how you still needed to get into your salvage job.” He puffed out a breath. “I think he was sincere.”
I nodded. “Okay, that’s good to hear because, well, I was a bit suspicious . . .” I decided not to finish my thought.
“Totally understood. But maybe it will help to hear what Trevor said this morning?” He raised an eyebrow.
“I didn’t want to ask, but is he okay?” I hadn’t yet figured out how to tell Santiago that I had some questions for Trevor myself but thought maybe now I wouldn’t have to.
“He went on quite a bender after the service, it seems. Said he started drinking that afternoon and just woke up when Ms. Nicholas called him this morning.” He rubbed his face. “The kid is in a bad place.”
“And you’re concerned that maybe it’s not just grief making him so upset?” I asked.
“Exactly. Grief can do that to a person. Believe me, I’ve seen it,” he studied his hands. “Even years later, people can still be totally upended by a memory.”
“Much less an entire service,” I added.”
He nodded. “But there was something about what Trevor said that made me concerned. Do me a favor and steer clear of him for a bit, okay?”
I studied his face and decided I needed to share what I’d wanted to know from Trevor. “Okay, I will. But I was wondering something and had thought to ask him.”
Santiago smiled. “What were you wondering?”
“That shrine, it really seemed like a tribute, something put together by someone who loved Celeste.” I paused. “Or at least thought they did. I wondered if Trevor might know who that someone was.”
“Or if Trevor was that someone?” Santiago said.
“Yeah, now that you tell me this, that did occur to me.” I sighed. “I was going to ask him about it this morning at the historical society.”
Santiago tilted his head. “Because?”
“I thought he might talk to me more than he would you, just like with the garden club.” I was stretching to justify my actions, and I knew it.
Santiago got up and came around the desk. “I see what you mean, but let’s not get you in over your head, okay?” He took my hand in his. “I don’t want to lose you, and Sawyer can’t.”
I nodded. He was right. “No more investigating for me.” I pulled his hand into my lap. “But can I get busy doing my job?”
“You are free to gather the rest of the items from the warehouse. You’ll let Saul know?”
“I will,” I said as I stood and pulled him up with me. “Now, I need to go sit with my son in jail.”
He smiled. “Sounds like a plan,” he said as he pulled me close.
* * *
While Sawyer snoozed away on the cot, I sat on the chair Savannah gave me and called Saul. Normally, I would text in this – or any other situation – but Saul did not answer texts. Considered them rude, in fact. It was about time for Sawyer to wake up anyway, so I risked the conversation.
“Hi, Saul. I have good news,” I said when he answered.
“You’ve decided to take up confectionary?” He had a sweet tooth that should have rotted out twenty years ago.
“Alas, that’s my retirement plan, so I hope you make it.” It was part of my deal with Saul – I’d let him make the occasional mild sexist comment with only an eye roll in response, and I got to call him old. It worked for us.
He laughed. “So the real news?”
I told him we were cleared to begin on the warehouse, and he said his crew could be there at three if that suited me.
I pulled my phone away from my ear and saw it was two-thirty. “Okay. I may be a minute late. I have Sawyer,” I looked down to see my son beginning his very languorous wake-up process, “and he’s just waking up.”
“No problem. We’ll start with the big stuff and wait for you on directions for everything else.” He hung up.
I smiled down at the phone and then pulled a warm, fluffy-headed toddler into my lap for a quick snuggle. He rested against me until I said, “Want to go play in a big, empty, dirty building?” Then, he was up and moving fast. The key word was “dirty,” I’m sure.
* * *
By the time we arrived at the warehouse at just after three, the crew had pulled the other two printing presses out and was bringing the canning machine up from the basement. Saul led me to the piles they’d made of everything else – a few more boxes of letterpress books, a really interesting collection of glass bottles, and a few dozen windows with most of their panes intact. “Looks like we could build a couple of greenhouses to sell from these and the window wall at the back,” I said as I approved the loading of everything into the truck.
“Agreed.” He took another look around and said, “I think that’s everything that’s not attached. We’ll start on the building itself tomorrow.”
I nodded. “Sounds good.” I took a quick look to see that Sawyer was safely out of the way of all the moving equipment as he watched the truck lift with fascination before I said, “Nothing amiss downstairs, right?”
“Nope, nothing.”
I sighed. “Good. That was just terrifying.”
“I bet it was,” a deep voice said from the doorway behind me. “That’s why I’ve been sleeping here with some floodlights on. Figured that would deter the shrine maker.”
Robard Greene stood in the doorway, and his frame blocked most of the light. I don’t know if it was my uneasiness in the building because of my last two visits, my suspicions of him directly, or just motherly instinct, but I didn’t like that he was between me and my son. “Good to see you, Mr. Greene.” I stepped forward to him, and he moved out of the way.
“Your son is a natural operator, Paisley,” he said with a laugh.
Saul came out from behind me and said, “Well, clearly, I’ll need him to start on the crew as soon as he can get a work permit. Or if you’re up for it, I can pay him under the table to run the lift.”
I rolled my eyes at the two men but smiled myself when I saw my toddler standing with one of the men who was letting him operate the lift controls. He was following directions from the crew as they needed him to raise and lower the lift. He was in his version of heaven. “You guys okay with that?” I asked one of the men.
“Are you kidding? It frees up a man to carry things,” the guy answered. “We’ll keep an eye on him if you want.”
I glanced over at Saul. “The guys all have kids, too. He’ll be okay for a few minutes.”
Sawyer wasn’t paying a bit of attention to me, so I suggested we take a look at the basement, “Just to double-check to be sure we didn’t miss anything.” Really, I wanted to watch Robard’s reaction when we went down. I didn’t know what I was watching for exactly, but I figured if he was hesitant or over-eager, it might mean something.
“Sure,” Robard said. “Looks to me like you got it all, but always good to double-check.”
I sighed. He clearly wasn’t nervous about going down. The man had slept here the past two nights, though, so maybe we were looking at too much ease.
The three of us made our way down the stairs inside, but when we got to the bottom and turned into the room, all of us stopped and looked at the elevator shaft. It was empty, except for the puddles of dried white wax on the floor. Santiago and Savannah had taken everything out. But I could still envision the candles and remember Celeste’s photo.
“I haven’t been able to come down here on my own,” Robard said. “Just too disturbing.”
I sighed. “Yeah, it was the creepiest thing I’d ever seen.”
Saul cleared his throat. “We’ll get to work taking the building down tomorrow, Robard. Take away the temptation for whoever has done this.”
Robard nodded. “I’d appreciate that. I had really hoped to remember Celeste in this place with fondness, but now,” he paused and turned toward the door, “now, it just needs to be gone.”
* * *
After I pried Sawyer’s tiny fingers from the lever of the truck lift, he and I went home and played all afternoon. I threw myself into the travels of tiny concrete mixers and forklifts and tried to work all my shoulder muscles while he was on the swing, anything I could do to stop my mind from running again and again over who might have killed Celeste and why. By the time Sawyer and I lay down to listen to some David Gray, a favorite singer of his and the one he called “Bob,” I was so exhausted I could have gone to sleep right then and there.
But once he dozed off, I got up, made some tea, and took out my cross-stitch. I needed to slow down my brain, so I cued up my new streaming channel trial and put on The Real World Homecoming. Once I had gotten over the fact that these folks were reuniting after thirty years – and realized just what that meant for my own age – I was really looking forward to seeing what I remembered about the characters and to thinking about how reality television had changed over three decades. At least that’s what I told myself as I picked up my sewing and decided to work on another billow of curtain at one side of the piece.
A couple of hours and a full curtain of stitches later, my phone vibrated, and I smiled to see Santiago’s name there: “Got time for a call?” he asked.
I stepped into the kitchen so that my voice wouldn’t wake Sawyer and smiled again when I answered. I was clearly smitten, and now, I didn’t even care. “This is a nice surprise.”
He laughed. “I had hoped to make it over, but I’m kind of buried. I needed your take on something, though. Savannah and I concur on the situation, but she suggested you might have a helpful perspective.”
“As a historian?”
“Actually, as a mom,” he said, and his voice grew more serious. “Trevor explained this morning that Mrs. Davenport threatened him just after the memorial service, told him that if he continued this nonsense about burying Celeste under that name she would ruin him.”
I wanted to scoff about the old-fashioned threat, but given what I’d seen of the Davenports, I figured it might be more than a threat. “Oh, how awful. No wonder he was so upset. She’s a very intimidating person to anyone, but I’d think especially to Trevor since he knew what she’d done to her own daughter.”
“That’s exactly the reason we thought you might be able to help.” He sighed. “Putting aside the real reasons Creedence Davenport wants to lie about Celeste’s identity, what would you do if you thought someone was a danger to Sawyer or his reputation?”
I sat down at the barstool by the counter and said, without pause, “Anything I could.” I took a breath, stifled back my sob, and said, “especially if he was already dead.” Tears were streaming down my face. I hated thinking about these things, but I knew Santiago needed my insight here.
