Daisy Lane (18 page)

“That would explain it,” Scott said. “Well, if you see her tell her I’m sorry I bothered her.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Trick said. “Aunt Mamie was born in a bad mood.”

But Scott did have reason to worry about it, as he soon found out after he was called to Mayor Stuart Machalvie’s office. When he greeted the mayor’s secretary, Kay, in the outer office, she warned him, “Mamie called him. She’s upset about your visit.”

When Scott entered his office, Stuart was shredding documents from a tall stack on his desk.

“You have a secretary who can do that,” Scott said.

“Some things are too important to be delegated,” Stuart said. “Now that Kay’s running against Peg I’m a little more circumspect in my assignments.”

“Peg worried?”

“We all are,” Stuart said, lowering his voice. “Kay’s a fine person. She’s also a competent city manager, but when it comes to the fine art of negotiation and diplomacy she lacks what I like to call seasoning.”

“May the best woman win,” Scott said, to which Stuart just grunted.

“I guess Mamie called,” Scott said.

“Why’d you have to go get that old hen all stirred up?” Stuart asked him. “What was that about?”

“I’m trying to find out who this man was who died on Jacob Branduff’s front porch last weekend. He has a tie to her family.”

“From now on,” Stuart said. “I would appreciate it if you would give me a heads-up before you call on her for any reason. She’s getting on in years and Knox says she’s starting to lose some of her faculties. Just between us, Knox is taking steps to be officially appointed her guardian. Very sad, but a time comes for us all, as they say.”

“I didn’t know that,” Scott said. “That would account for her not remembering who this man was.”

“No doubt,” Stuart said. “While you’re here, I’ve got something else I want to talk to you about. I understand you’ve taken an interest in Grace Branduff.”

“Just trying to make sure she gets situated in a safe place,” Scott said. “We’re still looking for the aunt, and social services notified her biological father of her situation.”

“Has the will been found?”

“Not yet,” Scott said. “After I leave here, I’m taking Grace back over to the house to look for it.”

“Too bad about the property,” Stuart said. “That house was once a showplace, you know; might be hard for her to unload it in this economy.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Scott said.

After Scott shut the door to Stuart’s office, Kay followed him outside.

“How’s the little girl?” she asked.

“As well as can be expected,” Scott said. “She’s had a tough life and now it looks like she’s completely alone in the world.”

“I’m glad to take her in,” Kay said. “Just temporarily, you understand.”

“I understand,” Scott said. “I was planning to bring her over tonight if that’s okay.”

“My most recent foster just ended, and I had decided not to do another one anytime soon. So this is just a temporary measure. I want that to be clear.”

“It is,” Scott said. “I’ll call C.P.S. and tell them.”

“I’ve already called,” Kay said. “I know everyone down there and got the judge’s approval, too. That may expedite things.”

“She’ll certainly be in safe hands,” Scott said.

“Jacob Branduff was a horrible old man,” Kay said. “Some say he worked his wife to death. It can’t have been easy to be raised by someone like that.”

“She seems remarkably stable for someone who’s been through what she has,” Scott said.

“I’ve had some experience with teenagers,” Kay said. “Don’t be surprised if she acts out or blows up over something quite small.”

“Grace isn’t like that,” Scott said. “She’s just a sweet young girl.”

“Just don’t be surprised when it happens,” Kay said. “Put anyone in a pressure cooker situation long enough and they’ll eventually explode. Add to that all the teenage hormones and any bullying at school and you’ve got yourself a bomb waiting to go off.”

Scott shook his head.

“I’m just telling you,” Kay said. “Don’t expect too much from her. She’s only human.”

Scott picked up Grace from Machalvie’s Funeral Home and took her back to her house.

“Sorry I couldn’t do that with you,” Scott said. “My mom died a few weeks ago, and it’s just …”

“It’s okay,” Grace said. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

“She was sick for a long time and I didn’t know it,” he said. “If I had known, I would have made her go to the doctor.”

Grace thought about her grandma, to whom doctors were not an option because of the religion she was raised in and the mean, stingy man she married.

She dreaded going back to her house to look through her grandfather’s things, but she knew she had to. She doubted there was anything of value, but she guessed the house would be hers to sell, and she needed the will to prove that.

When they arrived at her house, Grace said, “I need to water the plants in the greenhouse. I forgot about them.”

“Tommy and Ed are doing it,” Scott said. “I hope you don’t mind that I asked them. They come this way early in the morning when they deliver papers so they’re going to water everything then.”

“That’s nice of them,” Grace said. “I really didn’t want to go back in there.”

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” he asked her.

She nodded.

Scott took her key and opened the back door. The house was still warm from where he had turned up the heat the day before.

“Do you want me to help?” he asked her.

She shook her head.

Just then Scott’s radio came to life and Skip informed him that there was an emergency at Owl’s Branch Baptist Church. Someone had reported a break-in.

“I have to go,” Scott told Grace. “Do you want me to have Maggie come over and hang out with you?”

“I’ll be okay,” Grace said. “It may take me awhile anyway.”

“I’ll lock the door behind me,” Scott said. “If it seems like I’ll be a long time I’ll call Maggie and have her come down.”

After Scott left, Grace took a deep breath and opened the door to her grandfather’s room. The increase in heat made the smell of him ten times stronger, so her eyes watered and she gagged. She covered her nose and mouth with her T-shirt and opened the window. Big gusts of cool air billowed through the dusty curtains and helped disperse the foul odor. She leaned out the window to take a deep breath and was surprised to see the mayor standing on the stone path, looking back at her.

“Hello there, young lady,” he said.  “I thought I would pay my respects. Do you mind if I come in?”

Grace did not want to let Mayor Machalvie into the house, so she let herself out the back door and met him on the back stairs.

“All alone?” he said.

“Scott will be right back,” she said.

“Called out on an emergency, was he?” Stuart said. “That could take some time. Maybe I better come in and keep you company.”

“Maggie’s coming over,” Grace said. “She’ll be here any minute.”

“Ah, well, I didn’t foresee that,” Stuart said. “I’ll make this quick, then. I’d like to buy this property, Grace, as soon as the estate is settled. I’m prepared to give you a large deposit to hold it. I know you could use the money, and that way you won’t have to worry about meeting any expenses. The house is in pretty bad shape, you know, Grace, and you’d be required to do so many things to it before you could sell it; things that will cost a lot of money. I just don’t see how you could afford the liability insurance or the utilities on your own. The property’s not worth much but for the land. I’d be willing to give you $50,000.00 for it, with $10,000.00 down to hold it until the estate settles.”

“I don’t know,” Grace said. “I don’t even know if it’s mine to sell.”

“Well, you think about it,” Stuart said. “And be careful; don’t let anybody try to trick you into doing anything else with it. In fact, let’s just keep this deal between you and me, and when you find the will you bring it to me. I’ll be glad to steer you through any legal matters you might come up against.”

Grace didn’t know what to say, so she just said, “Okay.”

“Good, good, good,” Stuart said. “Now you take care, ya hear?”

He winked at her and left. Grace went back inside and locked the door behind her. The mayor had seemed very kind and helpful, but there had been something in his eyes she didn’t like; something that had laughed at her in a mean way. Fifty thousand dollars sounded like a fortune, though.

Scott walked around the outside of the Owl’s Branch Baptist Church but didn’t see any evidence of a break-in. He checked in with the nearest neighbors but they said they hadn’t seen anything suspicious. He drove out to the pastor’s house and he said he hadn’t called the station. Together they returned to the church and looked in every room; all seemed well.

Scott called the station to question Skip and he said it had been an anonymous caller. Scott thought about this as he drove back toward town over the winding roads that connected Owl’s Branch to Pine Mountain Road. By the time he got to Pine Mountain he had a strong enough cell signal to make a call.

“Mayor’s office,” Kay said.

“Is Stuart there?” Scott asked her. “It’s Scott.”

“No,” Kay said. “He left a little while ago; I’m not sure where he went.”

Scott told her his suspicions.

“You’re probably right,” Kay said. “I know for a fact he wants the property; he was talking to Trick about it earlier today. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he pulled something like that to get Grace alone.”

“It’s going to take me twenty minutes to get there,” Scott said. “Could I ask you a favor?”

“I’m leaving right now,” Kay said. “I’ll be there in two minutes.”

Grace searched her grandfather’s room top to bottom, but she didn’t find the will. While she searched, she heard noises from upstairs as Edgar made his daily mischief. She wondered if Edgar would be lonely in the house with no one to hear him act out. Lonelier, she thought. It must be awful to still be someone but not be able to be seen or communicate. She hoped her grandfather went straight to wherever it was people went, and did not stop back by to visit.

Grace looked everywhere she could think of where something might be hidden on the first floor. Meanwhile Edgar opened and closed doors, made footstep noises on the attic stairs, and turned the lights on and off.

“You’re awfully busy today, Edgar,” she called up the stairs. “Where did grandfather hide the will?”

It was very quiet for a few moments, and then the door to the stairs that led from the second floor to the third floor creaked as it slowly swung open. Grace climbed the stairs to the second floor and heard Edgar’s footsteps on the third floor. Then she heard the door from the third floor to the attic stairs open. Grace climbed to the third floor and paused at the top of the stairs. She could hear the baby birds cheeping in their nest below, and a tapping noise in the attic. Grace climbed the stairs into the attic and saw that one of the windows was not secured. The tapping had been the sound of it rattling in its frame.

It was cold in the attic. Grandma’s dress form was there, dusty and stained, but there were no old trunks full of clothes or antiques that could be sold. Anything that was worth anything had been sold before Grace was even born. Her mother and aunt used to come up here and smoke out the open window. When Grace was little she sometimes brought her dolls up here to play, far away from the shouting and crying that often could be heard on the floors below.

Grace walked to the windows on the front of the house, firmly secured the one that was loose, and then looked out over the field across the alley, the trailer park, and the backs of the businesses on Rose Hill Avenue. The mayor was out back of the city building, standing in the parking lot, talking to Trick Rodefeffer, who was sitting in his orange Corvette. The mayor was gesturing with his cigar towards her house. Grace thought about his offer. She could take that money and run away, make a life for herself somewhere else.

The door at the bottom of the steps slammed shut and startled her.

Grace turned, saying, “Oh, Edgar,” but then stopped when she spotted something. She would have to be standing exactly where she was, and turn exactly as she had in order to see it. There was a space between the two-by-fours that framed the dormer area in which she stood. At the top of the window, where the wall met the dormer, the frame made a ledge. On that ledge was a cigar box, covered in thick dust.

The will was in it. It also had her grandparents’ marriage certificate and birth certificates for everyone in the family. On hers, where the name of her father should have been printed, it said “unknown.” She knew she shouldn’t be surprised, but seeing legal proof seemed to confirm the horrible word with which some children had teased her as a child.

She read through the will, which wasn’t very long. Her grandfather had bequeathed all his worldly goods to his wife, and if she pre-deceased him, to his living children and then their children.