Enright Family Collection (115 page)

“My mother would be fascinated by this,” Georgia told him. “She’s a writer, and is always looking for interesting things to slip into her latest novel.”

“Oh? Would I know her books?”

“Delia Enright.”

“Of course. You did say your name was Enright. I know your mother’s work well. As a matter of fact, I met her all too briefly, a few years ago, at a booksellers
convention in Boston. A lovely, lovely woman, I recall,” he said thoughtfully.

“She is, yes.” Georgia drained the last bit of coffee from her cup. “If you’re around in two weeks, you’ll probably run into her. She’s coming down to see Ally’s school play.”

“Ally?” He seemed puzzled by the connection. “Oh, of course. Laura’s daughter would be—”

“Mother’s granddaughter.” Georgia nodded. “We’re all planning on attending. The Bishop’s Cove Kindergarten Spring Production is quite the thing, they tell me.”

“Well, then, I’ll just have to see if I can beg a ticket.”

“We’d be delighted to have you join us. And I’m sure Mother will be delighted to see you again.” Georgia smiled.
And if she isn’t, we’ll take her somewhere and have her head examined.
“Well, I think I’ll go in and see if there’s anything I can help Laura with this morning. It was fun talking with you. I’m sure we’ll run into each other again.”

“We will if you’re planning on staying at the inn for a while. Or do you live here with Ally and Laura?”

“Oh, no. No. I’m just here for a visit.”

“I hope it’s been a pleasant one.”

“It has been. Thank you,” Georgia said as she opened the big front door and slipped through it.

She strolled across the oriental rug in the lobby and poked her head into the kitchen. Laura was biting her lip and tapping her fingers on the counter.

“Oh, Georgia,” her face brightened. “You were going out to Pumpkin Hill today anyway for preserves.
Would you mind going through the house to make certain that there was no break-in there as well? I really don’t want to postpone the meeting with my mother’s doctor. Matt said he’d try to reschedule some appointments if he could, but he couldn’t make any promises, and Chief Monroe wanted us to check out the house as soon as possible to see if anything’s been disturbed. You were there just yesterday, so you’d know right away if anyone’s been in there.”

“I don’t mind at all.” Georgia leaned on the wide wooden molding that framed the kitchen door. “As a matter of fact, I’m on my way up to shower. I’ll leave as soon as I’m dressed.”

“Wonderful. I’ll tell the Chief that you’ll meet him out there. Thank you.”

“I’m happy to help.” Georgia took the steps two at a time, grateful to be able to do this small thing for Laura, who had so much on her own plate: the running of the inn, an ill mother, and the full-time job of being a single parent.

Georgia wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to Laura’s husband. Whenever she had inquired, Laura changed the subject without acknowledgment. As Georgia climbed the steps she reflected on the fact that there were no photos of the man anywhere, as far as she had seen, nor had Ally ever mentioned her father. I
don’t even know what his name is,
she pondered as she closed her bedroom door behind her and stripped off her running clothes. Not his first name anyway.
Harmon
is his last name. Georgia had seen Ally’s kindergarten report with the name Allison Hope Bishop-Harmon across the top.

Maybe this Harmon fellow had abandoned them;
slipped away and disappeared so that he wouldn’t have to pay alimony and child support.
Or maybe,
Georgia thought more charitably,
he had died.
An accident, perhaps, or an illness. Curious though she was, Georgia could not bring herself to press for information concerning a subject that her sister obviously did not care to discuss. She’d asked Zoey, who had no more information but as much curiosity as Georgia herself had. She’d asked Delia, who’d been quite vague on the subject, making a comment to the effect that if and when Laura wanted to talk about it, she would, but for the life of her, Georgia couldn’t understand Laura’s reluctance. It appeared that Laura’s husband—Ally’s father—would just have to remain a mystery until such time as Laura felt inclined to enlighten her.

At the very least, it would have to wait until Georgia returned from her trip to Pumpkin Hill.

It was a relatively short, and definitely easy drive to the small country town of O’Hearn, really just two turns once you left Bishop’s Cove, Georgia realized. It was less than thirty minutes from the inn to the farmhouse that sat just outside the town limits, and she turned slowly into the drive and parked alongside the house, near the fenced-in garden. Chief Monroe must not have arrived, she surmised, there being no patrol car in sight. Jiggling the keys, she swung out of the Jeep and headed for the back door, then turned back to the garden fence. Something looked different this morning. What was it?

The latchless gate, which Laura had closed the day before, had been pushed open, probably, Georgia thought, by the wind. She began to pull the gate
closed, then stopped and stared at the garden that lay within the old fence. Someone had obviously paid a visit between yesterday afternoon and this morning. Here and there plants were half pushed from the ground, and the tall stalks that had stood dried and tall just the day before, now lay broken on the dirt. Fresh grooves cut into the earth at random angles, and the remains of last summer’s root crop, half-eaten, were strewn messily about. The whole effect was that of hungry vandals having come through the night before to plunder. Georgia stood with her hands on her hips, wondering why someone would do such a thing.

She pulled the gate shut as tightly as she could, then turned to look at the house, wondering if perhaps the same intruders who had created such chaos in the garden and had broken into the barn had managed to get into the house, as well. Surely the police would have checked, but she decided that a cautious look around before going in was always a wise move.

The tall grass that grew around the foundation of the old farmhouse stood as upright this morning as it had the day before, showing no sign that it had been trampled flat by invading feet. Georgia strolled around the outside of the house, checking to see if all the windows and doors were intact. It appeared that the kids who had stopped by in the night had confined their pillage to the garden and a visit to the barn. Satisfied that there were no unwelcome guests lingering about, Georgia went to the back door and unlocked it with the key Laura had given her. She
stepped into the kitchen, paused, then locked the door behind her. Just in case.

The early morning sun flooded through the windows to welcome her, and Georgia smiled without realizing she was doing so. The room was warm and pleasant and homey. She left her purse on the kitchen table and walked through the house to make certain that all was well. She passed through the dining room into the living room, then into the small sitting room beyond. Nothing was out of place, and she headed up the steps to check the bedrooms. The house was quiet but, oddly, did not feel vacant, as if the life that had filled this place lingered long after its occupants had departed. It was not, Georgia realized, at all disconcerting, but rather a pleasant suggestion of welcome. The feeling of ease followed her back down the steps to the kitchen, where she unlocked the basement door and turned on the light. Laura had given her a list of things to bring from the jelly cupboard downstairs, and she pulled the small piece of paper out of her pocket as she descended into the basement.

Georgia found the ancient pine cupboard just as Laura had described it, and opened the double doors. Rows of jars were aligned precisely across each of the shelves. Stacking her arms with dusty jars of the requested peach, plum, and strawberry jam, she carried them carefully up the stairs to the kitchen, where she placed them on the counter. On the second trip down she moved several jars around, searching in the dim light for the peaches Jody had asked for, and found herself marveling at the contents of the
cupboard, of the jewel-like colors and the shapes that shone through the clear sides of the glass containers. There were small canning jars of deep amethyst-purple grape preserves, strawberry jam as dark and rich as garnets, and emerald green piccalilli. Larger jars of tomatoes gleamed as bright a ruby red as they had when Hope Carter had placed them there the year before. Jars of deep brown apple butter and golden peaches stood side by side on the top shelf. There was a beauty to the colors, an artistry to the arrangement, that Georgia could not define. She knew only that for some reason, it brought a smile to her face to look into those shelves and see the preserved bounty of Pumpkin Hill spread out before her. She found herself wishing that she had known the woman whose hands had created such a pattern of perfection from the fruits of the earth, and in that moment understood Laura’s reluctance to empty the cupboard of its contents.

Georgia took down three large jars of peaches, two small jars of apple butter, and slipped in one of pumpkin butter as well. It would be a shame when the day finally came that these shelves stood empty, she found herself thinking as she closed the doors to the old cupboard. She went back up the steps and lined the jars up with the jams, then searched in the space under the sink for a dishcloth she could use to wipe dust from the jars. Once they were cleaned up and the cloth rinsed off, her small task complete, she was free to leave the house and could wait outside for Chief Monroe to arrive, but found herself not yet ready to lock the door behind her. What would it hurt
if she sat at that old round table and had a cup of tea while she waited for the police chief to arrive?

She put water on to boil and filled the silver tea ball with loose tea. The same slightly chipped white cup she had used the day before seemed to be waiting for her on the counter where she had left it. Something about being able to do that—to use the same cup two days in a row—gave her a sense of history here, brief though it might be, and it pleased her. When the tea kettle began to scream, she turned off the burner and poured her tea, swirling the tea ball around in the bottom of the cup until the color was just right. She removed the silver ball, now hot and dripping with amber liquid, and placed it on a saucer she’d left on the counter, then sat in the chair closest to the window to sip her tea and study her surroundings.

At ten o’clock on an early spring morning, Pumpkin Hill stretched out impatiently around the farmhouse. The fields beyond the barn were ready to be plowed for spring planting, and the trees were eager for their buds. There was silence where the whine of a tractor should have filled the air, stillness where the bustle of farm life should have brought the landscape to life.

How sad,
Georgia thought,
that a farm should be idle.

Absentmindedly she picked up a photo from the windowsill and studied the face of the old woman who had brought such vitality to this place, whose passing was mourned even by the land she had left behind. There was a strength in the woman’s eyes, a sureness in her smile, and Georgia quietly saluted her. She replaced the photograph on the sill, and
picked up the one next to it, the one of Hope with Laura’s brother, Matt. There was a third, smaller picture behind the two larger ones, and Georgia lifted it out of the sun’s glare. A laughing Ally, at maybe one year old, riding atop Matt’s shoulders. The same photo stood on Ally’s bedside table, and when she had first seen it, Georgia had mistakenly assumed the man in the picture was Ally’s father, the man and the child had seemed so in sync. She had been surprised to learn that the man was Ally’s uncle. Georgia had thought at the time it was odd that Matt’s picture would hold a place of honor and that Ally had no photos of her father on display.

Georgia drained the last of the tea from her cup, then rose to rinse it, pausing to gaze at the amber remains in the bottom. What had Laura said about Hope reading tea leaves?
Was there a book one could read to learn about such things?
she mused. What might that little clump of leaves near the handle signify? Or that tracing along the one side? She washed out the cup and dried it before reaching to return it to the cupboard.

The sound of tires crunching on the pebbled drive drew her attention, and she pulled aside the curtain just in time to see the local law emerge from a dark blue police car. She left the warmth of the kitchen and went out the back door.

“Hello!” she called. “Chief Monroe?”

“Yes.” The short, middle-aged officer with a slight paunch removed his police cap as he walked across the yard toward Georgia. “You must be Georgia. Laura called and said you’d be waiting. Have you had a chance to look around?”

“Yes. The house is fine. No sign of anyone even going near it. There is something I think you should see over here, though.” Georgia pointed to the garden. “It looks like someone went on a tear in here.”

Chief Monroe went to the fence and peered over it.
“Hmmph.
Would you look at that?”

He pushed open the gate and walked up and down the disheveled rows.
“Hmmph,”
he said again.

“Why do you suppose they did that?” Georgia asked, pointing to the uprooted plants.

Chief Monroe shook his head. “Doesn’t look like kids did this. For one thing, they swore they didn’t do anything but sneak into the barn. Said they never came near the house, and from what you’re telling me, they didn’t. I’ll ask them about the garden, but to tell you the truth, it doesn’t look like something kids would do in the dark, you know what I mean?”

“Well, it’s curious, Chief. Laura and I were here yesterday, and the garden was just as neat as ... as if it had been tended last week.”

“I’ll ask the kids again.” He nodded slowly. “In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye on the place as best we can. But as I reminded Laura, we’re a very small, rural department and don’t have a lot of man-hours to spare. She and Matt should make some sort of arrangements to secure the property. Last night’s group wanted nothing more than a place to drink a few beers. Who’s to say that the next time someone won’t get careless with a cigarette? It would be a terrible shame if something were to happen to the barn or to the old farmhouse. The Evans place has been part of this community for two hundred years. I’ll do my best to look after it, but I sure wish Laura
would rent the place out. At least there’d be someone on the premises, know what I mean?”