A Pizza to Die For (7 page)

Chapter 5

“O
kay, just to set things straight, your plan last night was better than mine,” Maddy said as she picked me up at my house the next morning at eight.

“Why? Didn’t you have any luck online?”

“I didn’t think it was possible, but Nathan Sizemore has literally made himself invisible on the Internet,” she said. “I could barely find any place that acknowledged that he’d ever been born.”

“How was Bob able to find out so much about him, then?”

I knew I was poking an angry bear with a stick, but I really wanted to know. “Don’t you think I’ve been asking myself that same question? The only thing I can figure out is that he’s got access to some kind of extended search engines that I don’t have.”

“You could always ask him for help,” I said.

“Gosh, Eleanor, sometimes it’s like you don’t even know me at all,” she said with a smile.

“Granted, that was a stupid suggestion. How about Judson Sizemore? Did you have better luck looking into his life?”

Maddy didn’t answer, and after a second, I looked at her, concerned that she hadn’t replied. “What’s wrong?”

In a low voice, she said, “Eleanor, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I didn’t even check. I had so much trouble getting anything on Nathan that I completely forgot about digging into Judson’s life. Some detective I turned out to be.”

“Hey, don’t beat yourself up about it, Maddy. We’ve got time.”

We drove in silence for a few miles, and then my sister asked as she pulled up in front of his place, “Do you really think Nathan’s going to talk to us if we just show up on his doorstep?”

“I can’t think of anything better to do at this point, can you?”

“You’ve got a point. We don’t have anything to lose,” she said.

We rang the doorbell a dozen times, but there was no reply.

“He’s not home,” Maddy said, “and that’s not going to change no matter how many times you ring that bell.”

She was right, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Maybe he’s just not in the house. Let’s look around back.”

Maddy touched my shoulder. “You saw how he reacted when we showed up unannounced last night. Do you really want to take the chance he’ll think we’re a pair of trespassers?”

“We
are
trespassing Maddy, need I remind you?” I asked.

“Okay, but that still doesn’t protect us from a shotgun blast.”

I laughed out of humor and more than a touch of sheer terror. “What do you want to do, Maddy, live forever? Let’s go.”

I led the way around the house, and she followed me, something I wasn’t entirely certain would happen. In the end, no matter what, my sister always had my back, and I always had hers. It was what was so good and right about having her as family.

When we got around the side to the back of Nathan’s house, it was like stepping back in time. The man hadn’t wasted a cent on lawn care, mainly because there wasn’t a lawn. Instead, there was a garden large enough to be a small farm, but I didn’t see the usual crops of corn and beans growing. Instead, Nathan was growing sugarcane, cotton, and the oddest collection of plants I’d ever seen in my life.

“Hello? Nathan? Are you back here?” I called out.

I saw a scarecrow with two heads among the crops, and suddenly realized that one of the heads was alive. He didn’t look all that pleased to see us, and I had to wonder if that shotgun was somewhere close by. “What are you doing here?”

“We just want to talk,” I said. I held my empty hands in the air and added, “We’re not armed.”

He shook his head. “I’m not, either. You’re here, so you both might as well come on over.”

We walked down the path toward him, and as I looked around, I said, “I’ve got to tell you, I haven’t seen cane and cotton growing since I was a girl.”

He nodded. “It reminds me of my childhood. I spent too many hours working my daddy’s farm not to appreciate how tough they are to grow.”

“They’re beautiful,” I said, meaning it.

“Well, it’s kind of you to say, and I appreciate it,” he said. “What brings you back here to my place?”

“We wanted to apologize,” Maddy said. That was news to me, but I decided to go along with it and see where she was heading.

“What did you do?” he asked as he arched one eyebrow.

“Last night we sprang that news on you without considering for one second how you’d react to it,” I said.

“Doesn’t matter either way to me,” he said gruffly.

It was decision time. We could pretend to accept that at face value, or call him on it. There was really no doubt in my mind which way to go. “We know you backed the restaurant,” I said. “You had a stake in what happened, whether you want to admit it or not.”

The friendly warmth that had been there vanished as Nathan looked at me sharply. “What makes you say a crazy thing like that, just when I was starting to like you?”

I didn’t know how to respond to that when Maddy answered for the both of us, “It’s amazing how much ground is covered by Mountain Properties and Trust.”

That got his attention. “Okay, you know about me; I can see that. Now tell me who I need to fire.”

“What do you mean?”

He was openly angry now, and I was glad that he didn’t have his shotgun with him. I was even happier that his ire wasn’t directed at Maddy or me. Nathan said loudly, “Somebody’s been blabbing, and I won’t stand for it. I took particular care to make sure no one knew about that.”

“There’s no one to blame, really. We just stumbled across it,” I said.

“I know better than that,” he said harshly.

There was no way I was going to throw Bob Lemon under the bus just to stay in this man’s good graces. “Sorry, but that’s the only answer we’ve got. Tell us about your relationship with Judson Sizemore.”

Nathan shook his head, kicked at a clod of dirt, and kept his gaze on the ground without answering.

“Why won’t you tell us?” I asked softly. “It might make you feel better.”

“It might, but I’m willing to bet that it won’t,” he said.

“We’re not going to just go away,” I said, without threat or implication.

“I know that,” he said as he idly kicked at another clod. “I just hate spreading my business around town. This is personal, as personal as it gets.”

I looked at Nathan and said, “We won’t say anything to anyone that you don’t want us to.”

“You speak for your sister, do you?”

Maddy nodded. “Here and now, about this, she does, completely.”

Nathan seemed to take that in, and then he finally nodded his agreement. “It just might be good to get it all out, at that. It’s been weighing heavy on my mind, and I need to talk to somebody about it.” He took a deep breath, let some of it out, and then added, “Judson was my nephew, and now my family’s just about all gone.”

Once Nathan started talking, it was hard to believe that he’d been so reticent with us before. Maddy and I did our best to listen without interrupting as he spoke.

Staring at the dirt at his feet, Nathan said, “My brother was one mean son of a gun, let me start with that. He tortured me as a kid, beating me up for no reason other than because he could. The summer after my eighth grade year in school, I went to stay with my uncle Bob and his family on their farm. They’re all long gone now, but I’ll never forget what happened while I was there. I was a scrawny little kid when I left home, but a few months of throwing hay bales over my head made me strong, and the home cooking I got didn’t hurt, either. When I came back home, my brother greeted me by punching me in the gut. Instead of doubling over, I tensed myself and took it, and then I put him down with one blow. That’s all it took, and he never lifted a finger toward me again. Needless to say, as soon as we could go our separate ways, we did, and I never thought twice about him until the day he died.”

“You didn’t have any contact with him at all?” Maddy asked.

“My momma used to keep me updated on his shenanigans back when she was still alive, but the two of us barely spoke at her funeral, and our dad was long gone. After that, I had no reason to think about him. And then he up and died.” Was that a tear in the corner of Nathan’s eye? I couldn’t tell for sure because he brushed it away so quickly. He continued, “Now, I’ve long known that just because someone’s family, it doesn’t mean you have to love them, and there was none lost between the two of us, trust me when I tell you that. But I felt a compulsion to go to his funeral, so with mixed emotions, I drove to Chastain to pay my last respects, mostly because my momma would have wanted it that way. What I didn’t expect to find were two kids in their twenties who didn’t hold my past with their father against me. Turns out they hadn’t been all that fond of the jerk, themselves.”

“It must have been a shock when you just showed up like that.” I couldn’t help speaking as I tried to imagine what it must have been like for him. Maddy and I have had our differences in the past, but she was so much a part of me, I could never turn my back on her. Then again, Nathan hadn’t had it all that easy, if his story was even close to what had really happened between the two brothers.

He shrugged, and then kicked at the dirt again. “It was a surprise to all of us. Their mother was already gone, so it turned out that the three of us were all that was left of our line. Oh, there was a rumor of a cousin somewhere here in town, but nobody ever came right out and claimed kinship with me, so I figured it was just one more thing folks around Timber Ridge got wrong. I came back here after we screwed him into the ground—my brother was too crooked to go in any other way—not expecting anything else from either one of his kids. Then, Judson and Gina both showed up on my doorstep nine months ago.”

“What did they want?” I asked, unaware that all this drama had gone on right under our noses. Hearing him tell it was like seeing it unfold on the screen, it seemed so vivid to me.

“Believe it or not, they wanted to get to know their uncle Nathan,” he said. “And before you think they came here after my money—they were as much in the dark about what I’m worth as everyone else in Timber Ridge has been—until you two poked your noses into my business.”

“I’ll bet they were surprised when you told them,” I said.

“I never did tell them. They had no idea, and now Judson will never know.” He leveled a look at us and said, “Ladies, I’d appreciate you keeping what you know about me to yourselves.”

“I’m sorry, but I already told Bob Lemon,” Maddy said. That wasn’t strictly the truth, since it had been the other way around, but it was a clever way to get Bob’s knowledge of Nathan’s wealth out in the open without incriminating him.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s a good man, and I know he’ll keep quiet about what he knows.” Nathan paused, and then as he looked at Maddy, he added, “Especially if you’re the one asking him.”

I couldn’t believe it, but my sister actually blushed at that. “You’re right. You can trust him. I’ll talk to him.”

“I appreciate it. Anyway, back to my story. I asked the pair of them what they wanted to do with their lives, since they were both kind of adrift. Judson said he’d always dreamed of running a real old-fashioned pizzeria, and I wanted him near me. I told him I was stone broke, but that I had a friend who invested in things like that, and I set the deal up through someone in Hickory so they’d have no idea I was involved.” He turned to me as he added, “That’s why he opened Italia’s right on your doorstep, Eleanor. I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking what that would do to your business; but when The Shady Lady closed down, it seemed to work out beautifully for us.”

“What did Gina want?” Maddy asked.

“Nothing more than to move here and stay with me,” he said proudly. “She wasn’t due to move until next week, but Judson’s death has moved things up. There’re lots of details to see to about her brother’s arrangements, and I don’t have the heart to do any of it. Besides, if we’re being straight up about it, I hardly knew the boy. But that chance is gone now, and I owe someone a load of buckshot for robbing me of it.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said. “I know what it’s like to lose family.” I thought about how different I’d felt since losing Joe, and how I could still feel his presence from time to time, as though he’d never been ripped away from me.

Nathan nodded. “I appreciate that, but I’ll tell you something I’ve never admitted to anyone before in my life. I’d give up every square foot of land I own if I could have had the same relationship with my brother growing up that you and your sister have right now, and that’s the honest truth.”

What could we say to that? Maddy and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but when things got tough, we were always there for each other. I knew, even more than Nathan did, what he’d missed growing up with a brother like that, and he had my sympathy.

We had just finished talking when I saw a striking brunette in her mid-twenties come around the corner. Her six-inch heels buried themselves into the soil with each step she took, and her short skirt pulled up with each attempt to free herself. She finally found a patch of solid ground and moved quickly toward us.

When she spoke, the illusion of her beauty was suddenly diminished. Gina’s words were like acid as she lashed out at us, “Why are you two bothering my uncle? He’s in no shape to talk to anyone.”

“Gina, cool your jets,” Nathan said. “These ladies are friends of mine, and I’ll ask you to keep a respectful tone in your voice when you address them, do you hear me? This is Eleanor,” he said as he bobbed his head toward me, “and this is Maddy.”

“Sorry,” she said quickly to us. “I just don’t want him to have to deal with any drama right now. If you’ll excuse us, we have some details to go over for the funeral.”

I nodded. “We’re sorry for your loss, and we understand completely. Nathan, if there’s anything we can do, just let us know.”

“We will,” Gina said as she moved to block us off from her uncle.

Maddy and I took the hint, so we walked back to her car.

“Wow,” I said, “she comes on like a hurricane, doesn’t she? Did she look to you as though she even noticed that someone killed her brother?”

“Maybe she keeps it all bottled up inside.”