Wish You Were Here (13 page)

“Fireworks?”

“No, he was tired. Guess the excitement wore him out. He's got an alibi for the night Maude was killed. Home with his wife.”

“She could lie for him.”

“Do you honestly think, in your wildest dreams, Mary Minor Haristeen, that Linda Berryman would lie for Bob?”

“No.” Harry stopped to catch her breath. The steamy heat sucked it right out of her.

Up ahead the outline of the tunnel loomed, covered and fantastic-looking with kudzu, honeysuckle, and a wealth of weeds unknown even to Harry. The old track, an offshoot of the newer line, ran up to the mouth of the tunnel.

“I've been keeping an eye out for broken grasses and tracks”—Rick wiped sweat off his forehead—“but with thick foliage like this, unless it's very recent, I don't have much hope. It's easier coming up the tracks but it takes twice as long.”

As they reached the tunnel Harry cast her eyes upward. The chiseled remembrance of the men who built the tunnel, clear-cut and deep, was half covered by honeysuckle. The
C
.
CROZET
,
CHIEF ENGINEER
was visible. The rest was obscured except for
A
.
D
. 1852.

Harry pointed upward.

Kudzu grows about three feet a day, obscuring everything in its path.

“Treasure?” Harry said.

“The C and O searched the place top to bottom before they closed this off. And look at this rock. Nobody's getting through this stuff to hunt for treasure.”

The mouth of the tunnel had been filled with debris, rock, and then sealed with concrete. The right side of the mouth was totally choked by vines.

Harry, crestfallen, reached out and touched the rock, warm from the sun. She withdrew her hand.

“There are three more tunnels to go.”

“Brooksville is sealed off and Little Rock is still in use. I don't know if they shut off the Blue Ridge but it's so long and far away—”

“You're up on your tunnels.” Harry smiled. She wasn't the only one sitting up at night reading.

“And so are you. Come on. There's nothing here.”

As they trudged back Rick promised to send out a deputy to investigate the Brooksville, Little Rock, and Blue Ridge tunnels. They were outside his jurisdiction but he'd work that out with his counterparts in the other counties.

“What about calling the C and O?” Harry suggested.

“I did that. They got me the reports of closing the tunnels in 1944. Couldn't have been more helpful.”

“And . . . ?”

“Just a dry recounting of shutting them up. There's no treasure, Harry. I don't know what the Crozet connection is. It's a dead end, kid.”

He drove her back to the post office, where Tucker had chewed the corner of the door and Mrs. Murphy, with great violence, had thrown her Kitty Litter all over the floor.

23

Curving, sensuous, gilded pieces of Louis XV furniture dazzled Harry each time she entered Josiah's house. Gifted with a good eye and imagination, Josiah painted the walls stark white, which made the beautiful desks, bombé chests, and chairs stand out vividly. The floors, dark walnut, polished to perfection, reflected the glories of the furniture. The King Kong of pastel floral arrangements commanded the center of the coffee table. The flowers and the French pieces provided the only color in the room.

Josiah provided color of a different sort, valiantly sitting in a wing chair playing host to his callers, who had come as custom dictated. On a satinwood table next to the chair was a round cerise bowl that contained old marbles. Every now and then Josiah would reach into the bowl and run them through his fingers like worry beads. Another bowl contained old type bits; yet another contained doorknobs with mercury centers.

Susan rushed up to Harry to spill the rotten news about Danny's using his father's credit card to get money from the twenty-four-hour banking window. Ned had grounded him for the rest of the summer. Harry commiserated as Mrs. Hogendobber arrived with her famous potato salad. Mim, sleek in linen pants and a two-hundred-dollar T-shirt, glided over to assist Mrs. Hogendobber in carrying the heavy bowl. Hayden was just leaving as Fair came in. Little Marilyn served drinks out of a massive sterling-silver bowl. Little Marilyn was spending a lot of time next to the liquor at these gatherings. Each time Harry looked her way, Little Marilyn found something fascinating to hold her attention. She wasn't going to acknowledge Harry with even a grimace, much less a smile.

“I've got to pay my respects to Josiah.” Harry slipped her arm around Susan's waist. “The bank won't tell on Danny, so if you and Ned keep it quiet no one will know but me. I think a teenaged boy is allowed a few mistakes.”

“A five-hundred-dollar one! And that's another thing. His father says he has to pay back every penny by Halloween.”

“Halloween?”

“At first Ned said Labor Day but Danny cried and said he couldn't make enough from mowing lawns between the middle of July and Labor Day.”

“This must be an up-to-date version of clipping a few bills from Mom's purse. Did you ever steal from your mother?”

“God, no.” Susan's hand automatically covered her chest. “She would have beat me within an inch of my life. Still would, too.”

Susan's mother was alive and extremely well in Montecito, California.

“My parents would not only have whopped me good,” Harry said, “they would have told everyone they knew, to accent my humiliation, which would have made it ten times worse. Did I ever tell you about Mother not being able to get me up in the morning?”

“You mean when our classes started at six-thirty
A
.
M
.? I didn't want to get up either. Remember that? There were so many of us the schools couldn't handle it, so they staggered the times we'd arrive at school in the morning. If you missed your buddies at lunch hour, that was that.”

“Poor Mom had to get up at five to try and get me up because I was on the 7:00
A
.
M
. shift. I just wouldn't budge. Finally she threw water on me. She was not a woman to shy from a remedy once its potency was established.”

Harry smiled. “I miss her. Odd, now I have no trouble getting up early. I even like it. It's too bad Mother didn't have more years to enjoy the fact that I've become an early bird.” She collected herself. “I've got to say something cheery to Josiah.”

Harry strolled over to Josiah, who was now being ministered to, literally, by Mrs. H., who was telling him about Lazarus. Josiah responded by saying that he, too, drew comfort from the thought of Lazarus waking from the dead but he, Josiah, was beat up, not dead. She needed to think of a better story. Then he reached for Harry.

“Dear Harry, you will forgive me for not rising.”

“Josiah, this is the first time I've seen anyone's eyes match his shirt. Maroon.”

“I prefer the descriptive
burgundy
.” He leaned back in his chair.

“Now isn't that like you, making light of something terrible.” Mrs. Hogendobber artlessly tried to pretend she liked Josiah and wished him well. Not that she disliked him, but she didn't feel he was exactly a man and she knew he wasn't a practicing Christian.

“It isn't so terrible. The man was distraught and lashed out. I don't know why Berryman's distraught, but if I were married to Our Lady of Cellulite perhaps I'd be distraught too.”

Harry laughed. He was awful but he was on target.

“I had no idea that Linda Berryman evidenced an interest in film.” Mrs. Hogendobber tentatively accepted a gin rickey—not that she was a drinker, mind you, but it had been an unusually difficult day and the sun was past the yardarm.

Fair, sitting across from Josiah, burst out laughing and then covered his mouth. Correcting Mrs. Hogendobber wasn't worth it.

“What's this I hear about the adorable Mrs. Murphy and the fierce Tee Tucker being caught red-handed, I mean red-pawed, in Maude's store—which I am buying, by the way?” Josiah asked Harry.

“I have no idea how they got in there.”

“I found them, you know.” Mrs. Hogendobber recounted, to the millisecond, the events leading to the discovery. She withheld the information about the desk but did give Harry a conspiratorial glance.

Josiah picked imaginary lint off his sleeve. “Don't you wish they could talk?”

“No.” Harry smiled. “I don't want everyone to know my secrets.”

“You have secrets?” Fair inclined his head toward Harry.

“Doesn't everyone?” Harry shot back.

The room quieted for a moment; then conversation hummed again.

“Not me,” Mrs. Hogendobber said in a forthright voice, and then remembered that she had one now. She rather liked that.

“One teeny secret, Mrs. H., one momentary fall from grace, or at least a barstool,” Josiah teased her. “I agree with Harry—we each have secrets.”

“Well, someone's got a humdinger.” Susan loathed the word
humdinger
, but it fit.

Harry exited the conversation on secrets as Mim joined it. She walked over to Little Marilyn, who couldn't weasel out of talking to her now.

“Marilyn.”

“Harry.”

“You're not talking to me and I don't much like it.”

“Harry,” Little Marilyn whispered, genuinely fearful, “not in front of my mother. I'm not mad at you. She is.”

Harry also lowered her voice. “When are you going to cut the apron strings and be your own person? For chrissake, L.M., you're over thirty.”

Little Marilyn flushed. She wasn't accustomed to honest conversation, since with Mim you glided around issues. Speaking directly about something was tactless. However, life in WASP nirvana was growing stale. “You have to understand”—she was now almost inaudible—“when I get married I can do what I want, when I want.”

“How do you know you aren't exchanging one boss for another?”

“Not Fitz-Gilbert. He isn't remotely like Mother, which is why I like him.” That admission popped out of Little Marilyn's mouth before she recognized what it meant.

“You can do what you want now.”

“Why this sudden interest in me? You've never paid much attention to me before.” A hint of belligerence crept into her voice. If she was going to rebel against Mama, why not practice on Harry?

“I love your brother. He's one of the most wonderful people I've ever known. He loves you and you'll hurt him if you keep him from your wedding. And I suppose if you'd stop hanging around with that vapid, phony chic set I could learn to like you. Why don't you motor out to the stables and get a little horse shit on your shoes? When we were kids you were a good rider. Go to New York for a weekend. Just . . . do something.”

“Vapid? Phony? You're insulting my friends.”

“Wrong. Those are friends your mother chose for you. You don't have any friends except for your brother.” Tired, worried, and irritable underneath her public demeanor, Harry just blurted this out.

“And you're better off?” Little Marilyn began to enjoy this. “At least I'm getting the man I want. You're losing yours.”

Harry blinked. This was a new Little Marilyn. She didn't like the old one. The new one was really a surprise.

“Harry?” Josiah's voice floated above the chatter. “Harry.” He called a little louder. She turned. “It must be a glorious conversation. You haven't paid any attention to me and I've been calling.”

Little Marilyn, defiantly, walked over to Josiah first. Harry brought up the rear.

“You two girls were jabbering like bluejays,” Mim said with an edge. Then her husband, Jim, pushed open the front door with a booming greeting and Mim was truly on edge.

Harry eyed Little Marilyn's impeccable mother and thought that being in her company was like biting deeply into a lemon.

Fair saved the day, because Harry was teetering on the brink of letting everyone know exactly what she thought about them. He sensed that she was coiled, crabby. He knew he no longer loved his wife but after nearly a decade of being with someone, learning her habits, feeling responsible for her, it was a hard habit to break. So he rescued Harry from herself at that moment.

“What were you doing in Rick Shaw's squad car?” he asked.

A slow hush rolled over the room like a soft ground fog.

“We drove up to the Greenwood tunnel,” Harry said, nonchalant.

“In this heat?” Josiah was incredulous.

“Maybe that was Rick's way of wearing her down for questioning,” Susan said.

“I think the tunnels have something to do with the murders.” Harry knew she should have shut her mouth.

“Ridiculous,” Mim snapped. “They've been closed for over forty years.”

Jim countered, “Right now no idea is ridiculous.”

“What about the treasure stories?” Mrs. Hogendobber said. “After all, those stories must have some truth in them or they wouldn't have been circulated for over one hundred years. Maybe it's a treasure of a rare kind.”

“Like my divine desk over there.” Josiah swung his hand out like a casual auctioneer. “I've been meaning to tell you, Mim, that you need this desk. The satinwood glows with the light of the centuries.”

“Now, now, Josiah.” Mim smiled. “We're declaring a moratorium on selling until your eyes and your nose heal.”

“If there were a treasure, the C and O would have found it.” Fair fixed himself another drink. “People love stories about lost causes, ghosts, and buried treasure.”

“Claudius Crozet was a genius. If he wanted to hide a treasure he could do it,” Mrs. Hogendobber interjected. “It was Crozet who warned the state of Virginia that Joseph Carrington Cabell's canal company would never work. Cabell was a highly influential man in the decades before the War of Northern Aggression, and he deviled Crozet all his life. Cabell single-handedly held up the development of railroads, which Claudius Crozet believed heralded the future. And Crozet was right. The canal company expired, costing investors and the state millions upon millions of dollars.”

“Mrs. Hogendobber, I'm quite impressed. I had no idea you were so knowledgeable about our . . . namesake.” Josiah sat up in his chair and then lapsed back again with a muffled moan.

“Here.” Fair handed him a stiff Glenfiddich scotch.

“I—” Mrs. Hogendobber, unaccustomed to lying, couldn't think what to say next.

Harry jumped in. “I told you not to volunteer to head the ‘Celebrate Crozet' committee.”

“Me?” Mrs. Hogendobber mumbled.

“Mrs. H., you've got
too much
on your mind. Recent events plus the committee . . . I'll come over tomorrow and help you, okay?”

Mrs. Hogendobber got the hidden message. She nodded in the affirmative.

“Well, Harry, what did you find at the Greenwood tunnel? Lots of florins and louis and golden Russian samovars?” Josiah smiled.

“Lots of pokeweed and honeysuckle and kudzu.”

“Some treasure.” Little Marilyn minced on “treasure.”

“Well”—Josiah breathed the scotch fumes—“I give you credit for going up there in this beastly heat. We've got to find out who this . . . person is, and nothing is too far-fetched.” He raised his glass to Harry in a toast and then proceeded to regale the group with his plans for Maude's store.

 

Later that night, Harry, who forgot to eat a decent dinner, got the munchies. She cranked up her mother's old blender, putting in whole milk, vanilla ice cream, wheat germ, and almonds. The almonds clanked as the blades ground them. She drank the concoction right out of the blender glass.

Tucker screeched into the kitchen, jumping on her hind legs.
“That's it! That's it!”

“Tucker, get down. You can lick the glass when I'm finished.”

Mrs. Murphy, hearing the fuss, roused herself from the living room sofa.
“What's going on, Tucker?”

“It's that smell.”
Tucker spun around in circles, her snow-white bib a blur.
“Close to the turtle smell, but much nicer, sweeter.”

Mrs. Murphy jumped on the counter and sniffed the bits of wheat germ and almonds. The ice cream smell was strong. She sniffed with intensity and then vaulted from the counter onto Harry's shoulder.