Time Is a River (7 page)

She had confronted death, and hadn’t she found her way back from that darkness? Wasn’t that brave, Mia asked herself?

Mia stopped rocking, rose from the chair, and went from window to window, opening them wide to the dark. What, she demanded of herself, was she afraid of? The night had no hold on her. Every moment of her life was a victory over death. Standing in the middle of the room she called out, “I am Mia the Brave!”

M
ia hummed as she drove down the dusty road. She should be tired. She’d read Kate’s diary until the wee hours of the morning and woke when she heard the early birdsongs outside her open window. She laughed aloud. How wonderful it was to let the music in!

She’d never slept so well. Certainly not since she’d arrived in the mountains. Before going to bed she’d put that ridiculous, humongous knife back in the kitchen drawer where it belonged. With the window above her bed open, Mia fell asleep to sounds she’d found frightening earlier: the melodic calls of a night bird, the hoots of an owl, the stirring of trees in the wind lulling her to sleep with whispered rustling. She’d slept without a single bad dream or haunting memory. And when she woke, she wasn’t sweaty and groggy. She felt deliciously refreshed. Looking up at the sky, she saw it was a brilliant cerulean without a cloud in sight. Mia tapped the wheel in time to the music on the radio.

She went first to Shaffer’s for coffee. The little bell clanged as she came in, and Becky called out a welcoming hello.

“You’re back!” she exclaimed from behind the counter.

This time Mia wasn’t aloof; she smiled warmly and ordered a coffee and a powdered-sugar cruller. Then she pulled out a second chair at her table. “Care to join me for a cup?” she called out.

Becky’s brows rose. Then she smiled wide and came around, limping slightly. Gripping the sides of her chair she eased gracefully, though slowly, into the chair.

“How are you?” Mia asked, concerned about her leg.

Becky adjusted her seat and shrugged. “There are good days and bad days. Today’s a pretty good one.” She waved her hand, eager to change the subject. “Anyway, how are you doing up there in the Watkins cabin? Any good ghost stories to share?”

“Not unless you consider the lights going out a ghostly event.”

“Really? They just went out?” Becky slapped her hand on the table and her eyes gleamed. “I knew it. The place is haunted. What did you do? Whooee, I’d’ve been out of that cabin and in my car in two seconds flat. Gimp leg or no.”

Mia laughed and shook her head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but it wasn’t a ghost. It was the toaster oven. I blew a fuse.”

Becky laughed heartily, enjoying the joke. “Damn. And here I thought all those stories we heard about Kate haunting that house were true.” She wiped her eyes, chuckling again. “I’m thinking you might do best to keep that bit about the toaster oven to yourself. It’s good that folks think that place is haunted. Keeps the kids from going up there if it stands empty. They’re always looking for a place to hang out.”

“Becky, what do you know about Kate Watkins?”

Becky took a sip from a mug of steaming coffee.

“Not too much. She used to be kind of a legend in these parts. I guess you could say she went from famous to infamous. Why?”

“Living in her cabin makes me curious. That’s all.” She set down her cup and put her chin in her palm. “What was she famous for? The murder?”

“No, no, that mess all came later. Our Kate used to be famous for fly-fishing.”

“Really?” she said, inordinately delighted by this. So Kate made it as a fly fisherwoman after all. She noted that Becky had referred to the woman as
our
Kate.

“I didn’t think women did much fly-fishing back in the nineteen hundreds. Wasn’t it a male sport? All clubbish and no-women-allowed kind of thing?”

“It still is in some parts. When anglers come in to pick up their coffee and doughnut, I still hear some old farts grumble about women in the streams, like they have no right to be there.” She harrumphed. “But it’s changing. We’ve got groups of women coming up here to fish now, same as men.”

“So Kate was a pioneer.”

“I guess. Of course, she had the social standing to back it up. When you got money, you can get away with a lot and no one gives you grief. At least not to your face.”

“Oh? What social standing?”

Becky looked at her sideways. “She was a Watkins.”

When Mia still looked at her with puzzlement, Becky said, “You know this town is called Watkins Mill, don’t you? She was one of
those
Watkinses.”

“I’m not from these parts so I don’t know the family. Are they like the Vanderbilts?”

“Well, hell, honey. There aren’t many that can stand with the Vanderbilts. You ever been to the Biltmore? Who hasn’t, eh? Such opulence! Some two hundred and fifty rooms in that house. And I complain about cleaning my eight. Famous people from all over the world came to visit them back when.” She reached over to help herself to a piece of Mia’s cruller. “The Watkins house isn’t too shabby, though. Did you ever see Watkins Lodge just up the road a piece?” She popped the doughnut into her mouth, sprinkling her chest with powdered sugar.

“I’ve seen the brochure.” Mia recalled the impressive Queen Anne mansion on the rolling grounds. She had thought Kate came from money. The diary photograph indicated a certain lifestyle, and her father had a housekeeper and a cook. But she didn’t expect the level of wealth that would have been required to live at an estate. “That’s quite a grand place.”

“It’s been added on to over the years, of course. All the new buildings, the lodge, the spa—none of that was there back when Kate lived there. But the main house, that’s where she grew up.”

Mia smiled, thinking of the little girl’s bedroom walls painted with wildflowers. She wondered if the child’s paintings were still there, lighting up the plain white walls. Probably not. They undoubtedly had been painted over by new owners. Made into the dull and proper hotel room.

Becky took another sip of her coffee, getting a little caught up in the topic. “The Watkins family owned a chunk of land hereabouts, too. Thousands of acres. But then the Depression came and they went under.”

“That’s when they sold their house?”

“It was a common enough story back then. Lots of estates were sold off.”

“The loss of a fortune is hardly a scandal or a mystery.”

“No, but the thing is, Kate became a recluse. A one hundred percent, genuine hermit.”

A young mother came in with a girl in tow. The girl let go and ran to the glass cabinet, flattening against it and declaring which pastries she wanted to buy. Becky rose but before she walked off she turned to Mia.

“And don’t forget, there was that little matter of a murder.”

She wanted to ask more questions but another customer came in, jingling the bell. The more Mia learned about Kate, the more intrigued she became. She paid her bill and left.

She went first to Clark’s Hardware. A small-framed man with wisps of gray hair on the top of his head stood at the cash register. He wore an apple red apron with the name
Clark’s Hardware
in bright green letters.

“Can I help you?” he called out in a flattened voice.

“Yes, thank you.” She looked at the aisles of tools and gadgets and felt lost. “I’m not sure I know what to ask you for.”

“Don’t be shy. That’s what I see as my job, hear? To help the customers, especially the ladies when they get confused. We’re a small bread-and-butter kind of place and service is our middle name.” He stuck out his hand. The bones were delicate and he had a soft grip. “I’m Clarence Clark, the owner of this store.”

“Hello,” she replied. “Mia Landan.”

“You from around here?”

“I’m from Charleston.”

“We get lots of visitors from Charleston. Pretty city. I go there often. So, what can I do you for?”

“Well, Clarence, if I may call you Clarence?” He nodded emphatically. “I have a problem.”

Clarence removed his glasses and polished them briskly. “Ask away. I’m your man.”

Mia told him how the cabin had lost power when she’d plugged in the new toaster oven she’d just purchased in his store.

“Blown fuse, no doubt about it. I’ll bet that electrical system is ancient. Did you bring a fuse with you?”

Mia shook her head. She was embarrassed to tell him she couldn’t even find the box.

He put his glasses back on and pursed his lips in thought. “Probably just as well. Those old fuse boxes can be tricky. I wonder what size fuse it would take?” He thought, drumming his fingers on the counter. “Was it the kind you screw in?”

“Honestly, Clarence, I have no idea.”

“Do you know where the fuse box is?”

Mia shook her head.

He sized up the situation quickly. “I’ll have to come up and have a look-see.”

Mia bet he’d love to be the first to see the inside of Kate Watkins’s cabin. “All right, yes, thank you. That would be fine, if you can spare the time. It’s a drive.”

“I’ll get Joe to come in and cover for me while I’m gone.” He could barely restrain his enthusiasm. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Before you go…I need some wood for the fireplace. Can you tell me how I can get that?”

“You’ve come to the right place. Do you want a cord?”

Mia sighed and shrugged. “What’s a cord?”

His eyes widened. “Why, uh, a cord is the measure by which wood is sold.” He leaned closer and spoke in a tone of confidence. “You’ve got to be careful where you buy your wood. I hate to say it, but there are some less than honest people who’ll take advantage of a pretty girl like you. You don’t want to get burned buying firewood.” He laughed at his own joke.

“A cord is a hundred twenty-eight cubic feet. That measures about four feet high by eight feet long. You want to buy it stacked, too, or you might find you bought less wood than you bargained for. And you want wood that’s been stored off the ground.”

He droned on about the proper cutting, stacking, and storing of firewood, and all Mia could think to herself was that this was one more area she never studied in college.

“Anything else?” he inquired, all business.

“I need some basic tools. Nothing fancy. Just enough to do a few tasks or repairs. You know, maybe a hammer and nails, that sort of thing.” Mia was determined to learn to be self-sufficient.

The little man lunged forward with alacrity, eager to tackle the task. She followed him as he darted from aisle to aisle pulling tools out of bins and muttering, “Phillips head, flat head, pliers, wrench, staple gun.” He came to an abrupt stop. “Maybe even an electric drill. Yes, definitely.” He persuaded her to buy a small yellow toolbox and as he filled it, he explained to her in great detail why she needed each item. Mia listened in a daze.

At the checkout counter she found a selection of fix-it manuals, and again with Clarence’s assistance, she selected one with lots of photographs and bought that, too.

The total was more than she’d expected. She pulled out her credit card and handed it to Clarence, thinking how Charles would have a fit.

She went from store to store along Main Street, purchasing what she felt were essentials. At Rodale’s she bought groceries; at Maeve MacBride’s she purchased a few more tubes of paint. She also stopped at the women’s clothing store to buy a few pairs of shorts and tops and a swimsuit to get her through the summer.

When she was working in the city she spent more on one suit than she did on all the things she bought today. During their marriage she and Charles made a good living, but they were cash poor. Other than a few stocks and bonds and their riverfront condominium, saving for the future had never been part of their budget. What little money they did have set aside had been devoured by her medical bills. Mia knew Charles deeply resented that. He’d never actually told her that in so many words. It was more in the exaggerated sighs when the medical bills came in, and comments like, “Well, I guess there’s no vacation this year…”

Before going home she stopped at the overlook park again. This little bench had become her favorite spot for making and receiving phone calls. Pulling out her cell phone, she saw she had several messages. She dialed voice mail and heard Maddie’s increasingly irritated phone messages, each demanding that she call immediately and how it had been six days since they’d talked and if Mia didn’t call soon she’d call the police to send out a rescue squad. There was a message from Belle, something about the hot water heater being delivered. She felt sucker punched when she heard Charles’s voice.

“Mia, it’s me. Charles. Please call me back when you get this. We need to talk.”

She closed the phone and stared out at the view, seeing nothing. Hearing his voice made her physically ill. Her heart was pounding in her ears as she stared at his name on her phone. Charles. Not Chuck, Charlie, Chas. Even in bed he didn’t like her using intimate nicknames. His family was old Charleston. This gave him a sense of entitlement that had once attracted her. He believed that it didn’t matter how successful he became or how much money he earned; his honored forebears had fixed it so every door and every coveted event in the city would be open to him and his issue till the end of time. Maybe knowing that was why he had so little ambition. Charles rested on his ancestors’ laurels.