Aunt Dimity Goes West (15 page)

Man Zone.”

I chuckled appreciatively, then asked, “What’s wrong

with his health?”

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Nancy Atherton

“He claims that he had some sort of work-related

accident back east,” Carrie told me. “He must have

gotten a good settlement out of his employer because

he’s been living off of it ever since.”

“Is he on medication?” I asked, recalling Dick’s

strange, unblinking gaze.

“If he is, he doesn’t get it from Dandy Don’s,” said

Carrie. “And I haven’t heard of him getting any pack-

ets in the mail.”

I was beginning to love this woman. She was better

informed than an FBI agent.

“I wonder what happened to him?” I said. “He

looked pretty fit to me, apart from the beer belly.”

“Could be his back,” Carrie reasoned, cocking her

head to one side. “Back troubles are hard to see, but

they can lay you out in no time flat. They can make you

pretty grouchy, too. I had sciatica once, and I was a perfect misery to everyone in sight until it cleared up.”

We discussed the agony of sciatica for a while,

moved from there to arthritis and rheumatism, and

wound our way through the perils of asthma, aller-

gies, and migraines before I managed to steer the con-

versation back in the direction I wanted it to go.

“I’ve heard that Dick was pretty hard on James

Blackwell, the guy who used to have Toby’s job at the

Aerie,” I said.

“Oh, he was just terrible to James,” Carrie acknowl-

edged, nodding sadly.

“Did he get physical?” I asked.

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121

“Do you mean, did he beat James up?” Carrie

shook her head rapidly. “Oh no, Dick’s not like that,

not like that at all. He’s never raised a hand to anyone.

He just enjoys getting under people’s skin.” Carrie

crossed her forearms on the table and leaned forward,

the classic pose of the experienced rumormonger.

“He used to pass remarks to James when James was in

here. Arlene Altman said he used to do the same thing

to him at the saloon. After a while, James just stopped

coming to town. The next thing I knew, he was gone.

It’s a pity. He was a nice man.”

I folded my own forearms on the table to signal

that I, too, was ready to get down to some serious

gossip-swapping. “Dick told
me
that the Aerie was cursed.”

“Not
that
old thing again!” Carrie snorted impatiently. “No one hardly talked about it until the Auer-

bachs built their place, and then it all started up again, same as before. I tell you, some people will believe

anything. I hope Dick didn’t rattle you.”

“He didn’t,” I said, “but maybe he rattled James. I

heard that James was trying to find out if some stories

he’d heard were true. Maybe the stories were the ones

Dick told him about the curse. Maybe Dick got under

his skin deeply enough to make him
believe
in the curse.”

“I doubt it,” said Carrie. “Only dimwits and chil-

dren take things like that seriously, and James Black-

well wasn’t a dimwit or a child. He had a good head

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Nancy Atherton

on his shoulders. He was a well-educated, well-read

man. Always had a book with him when he came to

my cafe, and he was polite, well spoken. I miss him.”

Her words tweaked a memory that had been lurk-

ing in the back of my mind, a memory I’d failed to

mention to Aunt Dimity. It was something Brett Whit-

combe had said while we watched the twins ride at

the Brockman Ranch.
James used to drop in on us now

and again. He took an interest in local history. Asked all sorts
of questions.Wanted to know what Bluebird was like in the
olden days.

“An amateur historian,” I murmured, half to myself.

“Pardon?” said Carrie.

I put even more weight on my forearms and

peered intently at her. “I heard that James Blackwell

was interested in local history. Maybe he learned

something about Bluebird’s past that made him be-

lieve in Dick’s story about the curse.”

“I can’t imagine what it could be,” said Carrie, “but

if you want to know about local history, you should

talk to Rose Blanding. She’s Pastor Blanding’s wife.

She runs the Bluebird Historical Society in the old

school building, where the tourist information office

is, but only from nine to one, when Claudia Lechat

takes over.”

“The artist,” I said, recalling the sign in the art

gallery’s window.

“Claudia does a little bit of everything.” Carrie

chuckled softly. “She even designed a road sign for the

Grumpy Old Man Zone. But if you want to know about

Aunt Dimity Goes West

123

local history, talk to Rose Blanding. She’s the expert.

She and Pastor Blanding live right next door to Good

Shepherd Lutheran, out along the lake. Toby can show

you the way. She’ll be home by one-fifteen.”

“I wouldn’t want to bother her at home,” I pro-

tested.

“It’s no bother,” Carrie assured me, waving off my

objection. “Rose is a pastor’s wife. Her door’s always

open to everyone. You don’t even have to be a

Lutheran.” She looked around at the rapidly filling ta-

bles and smiled apologetically. “Well, I could sit here

and talk with you all day, Lori, but I guess I’d better

get back to work.The lunch crowd’s arriving.”

“You can take our order before you go,” Toby sug-

gested. He looked at me and shrugged. “We may as

well stay for lunch.We have an hour to kill before we

visit Mrs. Blanding.”

“I’ll have whatever Toby’s having,” I said without

hesitation. “I’d also like to bring a box of Calico Cookies back to the Aerie. My sons have noticed that the

cookie jar up there is depressingly empty.”

Carrie lowered her eyes modestly. “Do you think

your little boys will like my cookies?”

“I know they will,” I said with absolute conviction.

Mindful of my promise to Aunt Dimity, I didn’t

explain that Will and Rob had already fallen in love

with Carrie Vyne’s cookies, half a world away.

Eleven

C arrie Vyne presented Toby and me with the

perfect meal to carry us through until dinner-

time: a bowl of tasty cream of broccoli soup, a

hunk of sourdough bread, a generous wedge of quiche

lorraine, and a small bunch of sweet red grapes, all of

it homemade, except for the grapes, but even they

came from a Colorado vineyard. At one o’clock we

gathered up our belongings, paid our bill, thanked

Carrie for her hospitality, and departed.

Toby pointed out various landmarks and remi-

nisced about his childhood as we strolled down Stafford

Avenue toward the lake, but I was too preoccupied to

give him my full attention. He carried the box of Calico Cookies, I had my bag of goodies from Dandy Don’s,

and we both wore wide-brimmed hats and dusty hiking

boots. We would have looked like a pair of carefree

tourists if I hadn’t been so pensive and so silent.

The more I thought about it, the more certain I be-

came that I’d been wrong to blame James Blackwell’s

abrupt abandonment of the Aerie on Dick Major’s

bullying. I was now convinced that James had fled the

Aerie because of the celebrated curse. Danny Auer-

bach’s former employee might have been the most

Aunt Dimity Goes West

125

sensible person in the world, but I knew better than

most that the right set of circumstances could spook

anyone.

If a man had ever been in the right place at the

right time to be well and truly spooked, I told myself,

it had been James. He’d lived alone at the Aerie for

nearly six months. He’d been just far enough away

from Bluebird to feel isolated, and since neither the

Auerbachs nor any of their friends had come to stay at

the Aerie during that time, he’d had nothing to keep

him occupied but a few routine chores. He would

have had plenty of free time to wonder if the rumors

he’d heard were true. And he’d heard those rumors,

as I had, not just from Dick Major, but from responsi-

ble adults all over town.

It seemed to me that if James Blackwell was as

well educated as Carrie Vyne thought he was, his nat-

ural inclination would be to find out more about the

rumors. He’d ask Brett Whitcombe questions, look

through the books in the Aerie’s library, perhaps bring

one with him to read while he sipped coffee at the

cafe. He might also pay a visit to the local historical

society.

He’d be told by some that the curse was blatant

nonsense, by others that it was God’s own truth, but

with a hungry mind and plenty of time on his hands,

he’d go on searching until, somewhere, he’d find a

clue that tipped the balance away from reason and

toward superstition. It wasn’t hard to imagine what

could have happened next.

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Nancy Atherton

James would lie awake in the dead of night, turn-

ing the clue over in his mind, and odd noises that had

never bothered him before would make him flinch.

A simple stumble would remind him of the host of

injuries—some of them fatal—that had inspired the

local legend. He’d begin to sleep less, to stumble

more, until fear finally overcame common sense.

As an educated, intelligent man, he’d be too embar-

rassed to explain his misgivings to his employer. In the end, he’d pack his bags and leave, without giving notice, without leaving a forwarding address—he’d leave as

suddenly and inexplicably as the Auerbachs had left.

“I wonder if Florence Auerbach knows about the

curse?” I mused aloud.

“I have no idea,” said Toby testily. “And I don’t

know how you can fill your head with such drivel

when you have”—he swept his arm through the air—

“
this
to look at.”

“Huh? What?” I snapped out of my reverie and re-

alized with a start that Toby had led me away from

Stafford Avenue to the gravelly west shore of Lake

Matula and one of the prettiest sights I’d yet seen.

The long, narrow lake lay at our feet, a light breeze

wrinkling its surface into a million fluid facets that

sparkled like fool’s gold in the sun. To our left and

slightly above us stood a white-painted church, its

spire gleaming against a backdrop of dark pines. Next

to it stood a large Victorian house with a wraparound

porch, a turret that rivaled the church’s spire in height, and a veritable sampler of lacy gingerbread trim. The

Aunt Dimity Goes West

127

house was painted a demure shade of dove gray, but

nothing could disguise its flamboyant architecture.

“It’s fantastic,” I said, laughing with delight. “Like

something out of a fairy tale.”

“I’m glad you noticed,” Toby said sarcastically. “It’s

the parsonage, where Mr. and Mrs. Blanding live.” He

scuffed the toe of his hiking boot in the gravel. “I wish you’d never heard about the curse, Lori. If you’re not

careful, you’ll become obsessed by it.”

“If I show the slightest sign of obsession,” I said

lightly, “you have my permission to throw me in the

lake.”

“I’ll do it,” Toby warned, shaking an index finger

at me.

“I know you will.” I hooked my arm through his.

“Come on. Let’s see if Mrs. Blanding is at home.”

It took us five minutes to walk the rest of the way

to the parsonage. The front door was open, as Carrie

Vyne had told us it would be, but the screen door was

shut. As I raised my hand to ring the doorbell, we

heard voices approaching from within. Toby recog-

nized them at once.

“It’s Rufe and Lou Zimmer,” he said, his face

brightening. “You’ll like the Zimmer brothers, Lori.

There’s no one else like them on earth.”

After my experiences at the Brockman Ranch and

Caroline’s Cafe, I was more than ready to challenge

the veracity of his last statement, but I held my

tongue, a feat that became increasingly difficult to do

when the men in question finally tottered into view.

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Nancy Atherton

The Zimmer brothers were tiny, ancient, and ut-

terly identical, from the tips of their brown wingtip

shoes to the tops of their bald heads. They carried

matching straw boaters in their identical right hands

and wore matching gold cuff links in the cuffs of their

starched white shirts. Their shirts were tucked into

pleated cream-colored trousers held up by matching

pairs of red suspenders. When they spoke, they sounded

so much alike that I wouldn’t have been able to tell

them apart in the dark. The only reason I could tell

them apart in daylight was that one of them held a

brown briefcase in his left hand.

“. . . mighty kind of you, Rose,” said the one hold-

ing the briefcase. “We’ll be sure . . .”

“. . . to bring the maps back when we’re done

with them,” continued the other. “Shouldn’t take us

too long . . .”

“. . . to work out where the Escalante forge used

to be,” the first went on. “Old Lou thinks it was on