Nobody Knows Your Secret (12 page)

“
H
ey
, gal,” Anna said. “Long time no see, Maury. Hey, Hadley. What in the world’s the matter? You look like you got in a back alley fight and lost. Haven’t been hanging out with that tomcat of yours? You okay?”

“Sore muscles,” Hadley said. “I’ll be fine as soon as I move around a bit and work the tenderness out.”

“How’s it coming?” Anna asked. “You anywhere near finished cleaning out that house?”

“Quite a job,” Hadley said. “But Beanie and I are making progress.”

“Good,” Anna said. “Are you looking for anything in particular, today?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I’m wanting to look up an old copy of the Hope Rock County Gazette. I’m talking real old. Do you have copies stored somewhere?”

“Well,” Anna said, “we are digitizing a lot of the older material, but we haven’t gotten around to finishing all of it. Some of the very old stuff is still on microfilm.”

“Microfilm!” Hadley said. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I used those old microfiche machines in college. For research papers. Hot dog, Maury!”

“Hadley, what are you ramblin’ about?” Maury asked.

“Finally,” Hadley said, “a piece of technology I know how to use!”

Anna laughed.

“It is old school, but it works. The reason we’re trying phasing it out is because that technology takes up too much storage space. We are blessed here with a big building, so storage space is not as much of an issue for us as it is for other facilities.

“But, like just about everything else in the world, it takes time to move the old way to the new. Exactly how far back are you talking, Hadley?”

Hadley gave her the date.

“Step right back here,” Anna said. “You’re definitely still in the microfilm era. We have a room dedicated to the microfiche material. Over here, ladies. The films are in these drawers. If you need any help, just call me.”

“Thanks, Anna,” Hadley said. “I’m finally in my element. You old-school beauty, you haven’t changed in eons! Sit down, Maury. Let’s give these films a spin.”

Hadley found the correct microfilm and loaded it into the machine. She wound the little handle and the large screen in front of them was a blur of newsprint and motion.

“Slow down, Hadley! You’re makin’ me sick,” said Maury.

“I know,” said Hadley. “It doesn’t pay to get trigger happy on these machines and wind fast like you’re shooting a machine gun. I’m getting dizzy, myself. Wouldn’t Lou Edna gossip about me if I made myself so drunk I fell right out of this chair! Besides, I’m already sore enough from the fall.”

Hadley slowed the spin of the machine.

“Hey!” she said. “Here it is.”

“That’s Betsy and Billy Aiken,” Maury said. “Where’d they move off to?”

“California. I think,” said Hadley. “At least that’s the last place I heard. But it has been awhile, so I don’t really know for sure.”

“That’s right,” said Maury. “I remember, now. That little Betsy was something else. Wasn’t she? I don’t know why, but she always thought she was something on a stick, remember? Prissin’ around in that fancy little car Frankie bought her.”

“I’ll bet Betsy’s a leather prune by now if she’s cruisin’ the Pacific Coast Highway with the top down and no sunscreen.”

“Maury, you are terrible,” said Hadley.

“All that I am, I learned from my older sister,” said Maury.

“And a philosopher, too!” said Hadley. “But there is a grain of truth in what you say. I never win the award for always being the perfect Little Miss Sunshine.”

“Look!” said Maury. “Isn’t that Hardy!”

“I thought so, too,” said Hadley. “Looking at the old newsprint, it looked sort of like him. But here on this screen, it most definitely is.”

“Wonder why he never mentioned bein’ there that day? That was when Claire got hurt. Them coaster cars are tore up somethin’ fierce. Makes me shudder inside just lookin’ at this photo. Can you imagine how horrible it was to have been there and seen everything up close and in living color? Musta been an awful sight to see.”

“Maybe,” said Hadley, “that’s exactly why Hardy’s never talked about being there that day. As bad as these pictures are, it had to have been horrific to have been there in person.”

“Yeah,” said Maury. “Nightmare City.”

“Did you girls find what you need?” asked Anna.

“Yeah,” said Hadley. “Just quenching our curiosity. Nosy old biddies are like that.”

“Speaking of curiosity,” said Anna, “let me know when you want another fly-by over the county, Hadley.”

“I will. And thanks, Anna.”

Maury and Hadley were standing outside the library.

“You know you’re not goin’ back up in that contraption, Hadley,” Maury said. “I am mortified just to hear you mention that. I’ve seen that thing over at Stanley’s hangar. He’s proud as punch to have bought it for Anna. I think it looks like a rickety little rattle trap of death.”

“Anna’s little plane is quite safe. They say flying is safer than driving a car.”

“Tell that to Patsy Cline.”

T
he forest canopy
played out over the mountainside like a sea of green. Maury sat in her car on the back country road and reminisced. She remembered the times she’d visited the old Whittaker place with Bill. It seemed like a lifetime ago. They were both so young then. Life was like a freshly blooming dandelion sprinkled with morning dew. They had been dating six months. Things were going well. No major spats. Every day, Maury fell a little harder for the dark-haired boy who had stolen her heart.

A few times, Bill had driven to a secluded spot. Heck, she thought, on this land every place was a secluded spot. And the whole area was wildly beautiful, like an untamed stallion roaming the vast canyons out West.

The entrance to the property was so hard to find. Jubal had wanted it that way. Like so many mountain folks, he valued his privacy. Don’t bother him. That was Jubal’s motto. And he, in turn, did his best not to bother anybody else.

If you didn’t know where to look, you’d be hard pressed to find the entry way. Likewise, it would be nearly impossible to give directions to a stranger on how to find it. Jubal had definitely been successful in his efforts to camouflage it. She sat in her car, letting it idle.

Maury would be the first to admit it. Her curiosity had gotten the best of her. Perhaps she’d been hanging around her older sister too much, but here she was. She had to find out what Skip was up to.

From the moment he had left in his old truck that morning, the seeds of an obsession began growing. Deep down, Maury knew she should trust Skip but that had become hard to do lately. Skip was growing more secretive. And it wasn’t like him to be so moody.

She had been tempted to search his apartment to see if she could find evidence of something illegal. Skip had given her a spare key in case he locked himself out. God forbid it was drugs. But she could not bring herself to invade her son’s privacy. He was too much like Jubal in that regard. He would never forgive her. She’d said nothing to Bill. He had too much on his plate with Kyle’s murder.

What would Bill say? How would Skip react? She was terrified that if she revealed her truest thoughts, she’d turn both her son and her husband against her. But today, she would take a page from Hadley’s book and be proactive. She was going to see if she could find out what her elusive son was up to.

Her fingernails drummed the steering wheel. Nervous energy. If she sat in her car all day, she would never find anything out. She put the car in gear, edging closer to the twin offset hemlock trees that marked the entrance to the farm.

From the road the trees hid the way that led to the old cabin. It wasn’t until you drove up to them that the opening was revealed. Bill’s mother and father had lived there until they died.

Maury noted how much skinnier the road seemed. Were cars smaller back then? Probably not. She and Bill hadn’t tooled around the mountainsides in a T-model. Just her imagination.

The old road had never been much. It was hardly more than a dirt path. And it twisted and turned and forked in myriad directions. Maury had often laughed in those first days when Bill had brought her here. How had Bill grown up so straight and tall following all these zigzags, she’d joked. And some places were so steep. Why hadn’t he grown up with one leg shorter than the other!

She didn’t remember so many side paths.

But she took a deep breath. Let it all come back. She knew the way by heart. Right at the first fork in the road, then two lefts. Another right. Bear right again. Over the small wooden bridge. Right. Right. Then, another left.

It had been several years since she had driven here. Nature had been busy while she was away. Everywhere she looked she saw an overgrowth of green. It didn’t appear as if Skip had been any more interested in clearing out the road than his grandfather had been. It felt so wild up here. Deserted.

“I hope he is not growing pot up here,” she mumbled.

The whole area would be just perfect for your own little marijuana plantation.

Farther into the tangle of thickets and overgrowth, she drove. Slowly and carefully, she made her way, dodging large rocks and deep holes. It wouldn’t do to break an axle. A dollar to a doughnut, there were no bars on her cell this far out in the boondocks. It would be impossible to call Bill and let him know where she was stranded. Maury took a deep breath and swallowed her anxiety. It felt as if the forest was swallowing her up.

An uneasy dread filled her. She didn’t know if it was just her imagination or if her senses were alerting her to danger. The trees felt like they were moving in closer. Closer.

Funny, she thought, when Bill and I were up here in this knot of woods and briars, I never felt claustrophobic. She vaguely wondered if she was experiencing a panic attack. But she brushed off those thoughts. To dwell on them would only stir the cauldron of her apprehension even more.

Pushing her fear to a back burner, she chose to think of the times she’d been here with Bill. Of course, it had been pitch black dark and her mind, not to mention her body, had been occupied with other things. Still, she could not imagine living this far out in Nature. Hope Rock County wasn’t much, but the small community did have the amenities that made life bearable – electricity, indoor plumbing, and inside toilets.

Her face lit up. She smiled, suddenly. Her intuition had not abandoned her. She’d guessed right. She rounded the last curve, and the old cabin came into view. She also spied the corner of the tailgate of Skip’s old truck. She eased up beside it and got out of her car.

“Skip!” she called. “Skip! Where are you?”

There was no response. Only the cloistered sounds of Mother Nature. She placed her hand on the truck’s hood. It was cold.

She walked up to the porch. She could see the signs of Skip’s handiwork in the new boards he had woven into the old ones. He’d done a good job. She stepped up and felt nothing. The flooring was secure, not like the rickety porch she knew when Bill’s dad had been alive.

Back then, your foot eased down into the spongy boards every time you walked on them. It gave you an unpleasant sensation of walking on moss. Not a good feeling. But Maury had not mentioned this to Bill. It wouldn’t do to offend Bill’s parents. Not when she wanted so badly to make a good impression on them. Back then, it would not have surprised Maury in the slightest to have stepped through the old boards and broken an ankle. All with one uneasy misstep. But thankfully, that had never happened.

Skip’s handiwork was evident in other places, too. It looked like he was replacing the old windows, not with modern-day plastic ones, but with handmade wooden ones using the original glass from the old windows. Maury smiled. It was a detail that only her son would think about.

He had replaced the barn-style door his grandfather had made with a sturdy oak one, too. It looked really nice. Intricate panes of leaded glass decorated the top of the door. A wrought iron handle gave the door the rustic touch that complemented the cabin. Her son was going to have a fine place when he finished.

Maury called out Skip’s name again, knocked but got no response.

Walking to the back of the house, she looked around for any sign of him. Seeing nothing, she walked over to the barn. After wandering around for about an hour, she gave up.

She decided to return home and wait for Skip there. He could be anywhere on the land, and Maury had no intention of getting stranded out here in the dark. She needed to get back to town where she could breathe and where the trees were safely corralled in cement and asphalt and small patches of manicured grass.

She would have to figure out another way to find out what her son was up to. Of course, she could just come right out and ask him, but she feared Skip would take it the wrong way. For now, at least, she would just have to take it a day at the time, praying tomorrow would not bring her heartbreak and tears.

Virgie Winthrop crossed her mind.

Dear God, she prayed, please don’t let that be my tomorrow.

H
adley’s phone rang
.

“Hadley!” Maury said, “Bill and I had supper over at The Spoon, and you’ll never guess what who I saw!”

“Brad and Angelina!” Hadley said, gnawing on a carrot.

“No, silly,” said Maury, “although I would like to lay eyes on that beautiful hunk of man before I meet my maker. And Angie’s not shabby, either. But no. We saw Ruth and Doctor Haaamp-toooons. And they looked like they were out on a date! All smiles and lovey-dovey. I swear to you, Sis, those two were neckin’ in the back booth!”

“Great day in the morning!” Hadley said. “If that don’t beat all! That what’s-his name, Doctor Wilson’s got to be a good catch! He better not throw Ruth back in the stream if he’s got a lick of sense.”

“They looked happy,” Maury said, “We were only there a few minutes. A call came in, and Bill had to take it.”

Maury hesitated.

“What is it?” Hadley asked.

“We were in our personal car. Bill didn’t want to leave me out in the street, so I rode out with him to check it out. Don’t say anything, okay?”

“Maury, you know I can keep a secret.”

“Better than I can, that’s for sure. It was Cleve ’n’ Virgie. Domestic disturbance.”

“Oh, my stars!” Hadley said. “As if that poor woman doesn’t have enough burdens to bear!”

“Actually,” said Maury, “Cleve called the cops.”

“He what!” said Hadley.

“Virgie was like a hurricane!” Maury said. “I’ve never seen her so mad. She was chasin’ Cleve around the house with an iron skillet. She kept sayin’ it was high time somebody knocked some sense into Cleve’s hard head!”

“I would have loved to have seen that.”

“Bill said he was glad for a woman’s presence. I was able to talk to Virgie, you know, woman to woman. She calmed down a right smart. It wasn’t funny in one way, but Bill and I laughed the whole way home. If you could have seen the hound dawg look on old Cleve’s face!”

Both women laughed.

“Cleve refused to press charges,” Maury said. “After all that Virgie’s been through, I guess whatever it was that Cleve did that set her off was the straw that broke the donkey’s back.”

“Virgie’s a good woman,” said Hadley.

“Yes, she is,” said Maury, “but drivin’ back, Bill decided to swing back through town. I can’t be sure, Hadley, but I think I saw some kids dealin’ drugs in front of The Band-Aid.”

“Oh, no,” said Hadley.

“Right there on Main Street,” Maury said. “They scattered like mice when they saw the car. But that’s what Bill thought, too.”

“That’s just too scary to contemplate,” said Hadley.

“I never thought I would live to have seen anything like that in my life,” Maury said. “Did you lock your doors?”

“No,” said Hadley. “But I will.”