Harvestman Lodge (65 page)

Curtis Stokes said his goodbyes at that point, retreating to his basement room to call Kendra Miller while Caldwell, Eli, and Melinda went to the library room.

AWAY FROM OTHER EARS, Caldwell was more relaxed and freer in his conversation. He also began to reveal a flair for the dramatic.

“Eli, let me ask you something. Easy question, fill-in-the blank, even. How would you complete the following sentence: Kincheloe County and Tylerville together possess more than their share of … ”

It didn’t take Eli long to answer. “More than their share of eccentric local characters. At least as I see it.”

Caldwell guffawed and slapped his hand on his thigh, which turned his laugh to a yelp of pain because of the arthritis.

He shook it off quickly, embarrassed. “Good answer, my friend. Good answer! There are indeed many of us here.”

“I wasn’t intending to imply that you, sir, are one of the … ”

“Oh, get real, son! Look at me! I’m a lonely old man living in a house covered with weeds and vines and shared with the biggest shadow-spastic kook in town! I never found a woman gullible enough to marry me, so I never had a family. I had some old family money and a busy law career that made me a good income – especially so by Kincheloe County standards. I saved my income mostly because I had no one to spend it on, except some charitable cases I took upon myself. I launched a writing career and enjoyed some measure of success there as well. Even so, look at me: I live as a hermit in the middle of town, can’t even see the street out my own windows. You don’t think I qualify as an ‘eccentric character’? I’ve worked a long time to develop my oddball reputation, and I’ll be quite perturbed if you deny me what I’ve worked for.”

Melinda chimed in: “Well, according to my father, sir, you are a ‘idiot savant lawyer with the savant part missing.’ Does that make you feel better?”

“I’ll take it, my dear! By the way, do give your father my regards, and tell him I’d like to have him over for a cold beer sometime.”

Melinda laughed. “I’ll do that! And if he accepts the invitation, I’ll come with him just for the chance to see him finally loosen up.”

“Coleman, did I answer your question correctly?” Eli asked. “About what this community has more than its share of?”

“Well, it wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but it certainly can’t be denied. Yes, this community of ours is crawling with eccentric characters, enough for ten communities our size. But the answer I was looking for was … ”

“Secrets and rumors,” Melinda guessed.

“Exactly!” Caldwell replied. “Old Kincheloe is rife with them, lousy with them, reeking with them! Secrets shrouded in rumors, rumors hidden in lies, and lies masked by exaggerations. And the best example of all of it is … “

“Harvestman Lodge and the things that happened there,” Melinda said.

“Indeed!” Caldwell looked at Eli. “Beautiful, talented, and sharp as a pin, this lady is, Eli! You should keep a close rein on her so she does not get away.”

Eli shook his head. “I know her well enough now, sir, to understand she wouldn’t abide reins for long.” The look Melinda gave him told Eli he’d spoken rightly.

Caldwell chuckled, then became more serious. “I let a lovely lady – the best and loveliest lady I ever knew – get away once, and the result is the life I live now. Forget reins, then, but whatever you do, don’t let this one slip away, young man. The price of losing the right one is simply too high to pay. I know that better than most.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Melinda. “But now I have a question for you.”

“What is that?”

“What did happen at Harvestman Lodge? Really? And why is it treated as such an unmentionable subject?”

THE QUESTION WAS OVERDUE AND would have been asked by Eli if Melinda hadn’t beat him to it. Caldwell shifted in his chair in arthritic discomfort.

“You two already have talked to Feely, right?” Caldwell said. “What did he tell you?”

“Shall I answer, or you?” Melinda asked Eli.

“Go ahead.”

Melinda ordered her thoughts a moment, then said, “According to Rev. Feely, the Fraternal Order of Tennessee Harvestmen was born out of a 1920s camp meeting revival in Kincheloe County. The lodge organization was created to provide an opportunity for farmers and others involved in agriculture to work together in good deeds, community service, and so on. It all went well for a time, but then things degraded, until finally, by the latter years of the Harvestmen, a particularly bad element had come in, one connected with a criminal enterprise not fully clear to me. How it all happened, no one seems to know, or at least no one seems willing to say, but along the way that criminal connection led to a tragedy, so far undefined, involving a young girl. Who she was, exactly what happened to her and how it happened, none of this seems to be known. There are strong hints that the girl ended up dead. You may be familiar with Erlene Ledford’s rather unusual display of her vision of county ‘history,’ and the image of her ‘rising angel’ ascending to heaven above Harvestman Lodge.”

“I’ve seen it, yes.”

“What do
you
know about what happened, Coleman?” Eli asked.

Coleman shifted in his leather chair again. “You know the Arcade Building downtown, of course.”

“Of course.”

“You’ll find the answer to that last question there.”

“I don’t understand.”

Caldwell answered by reaching into the inner pocket of his tacky sportcoat and bringing out a small keychain, bearing two standard-sized door keys and one smaller key, the latter sized for a desk or filing cabinet lock. He handed the keys to Eli.

“Upper level, end of the balcony walkway,” he said. “Room 205. My name is still on the door.”

“Is this your old law office location?”

“Yes. Directly above the old Spancake jewelry store. The filing cabinets are against the wall to your left when you go in the door of my personal inner office.”

“What exactly should I look for?”

“You’ve got a fine imagination, Eli. It was evident in your novel. Use that imagination. You’ll find it.”

“Will you be there?”

“You can handle this on your own. If anyone challenges you about opening my office, show them the keys and tell them to call me. I’ll vouch for you. And if you need to call me while you are in my office, the phone on my desk is still live. I don’t know why I keep it, because I never go in there anymore, but it just seems the thing to do, if one has an office, is to have a working phone in it.”

“When should I go?”

“That’s entirely up to you. And before you ask, yes, Melinda is welcome to go with you.”

“The small key … ”

“Fits all the filing cabinet locks in the office. And the desk. I’ve always been lazy about keeping up with a bunch of different keys, so I had the smaller locks made uniform.”

“Why are there two different door keys?”

Caldwell smiled. “I won’t lie to you, young man: I’m a bit of a game player. A giver of challenges and tests. The second door key relates to that part of my personality.”

Caldwell was right in what he’d said before,
Eli thought.
He really is one of this town’s eccentric, oddball characters.

“So the second key … ”

“… Indicates you’ll find a second door. But you may have to look for it. That’s all I’ll say … except to add that finding it will prove worth the effort, if you are truly looking for answers.”

“No tips as to what files specifically to look for?”

“You’ll find what you need. Just activate your brain as you go in the door. My files are clearly marked. All I ask of you is that you do not get things out of order, and that you lose nothing.”

“Fair enough. Thank you, Coleman.”

“If you want to thank me, do it by reading this.” He took a manuscript box from his desk and handed it over. It was big enough to hold about a ream and a half of paper, and felt nearly full.

“What’s this?”

“I have a firm rule for myself: no reading and evaluating manuscripts written by others, even though I’ve been asked many times by many would-be writers. You probably have been asked the same kind of favor yourself.”

“A couple of times, yes. But I follow the same guideline you do. I’m a writer, not an editor. Two different skill sets. Related, obviously, but not the same. And even if I loved a manuscript, I’m not positioned to get it published.”

“Precisely, my friend. I agree. And because we both see this in the same way, you have every right to despise me for handing you that box. In it is a manuscript, a new one, one I have been working on rather maniacally for months now, one I hope will become my entrance back into the world of the published writer.”

“Is this the novel that ties to Harvestman Lodge?”

“It is not. That one is to be found in my Arcade office, along with other Harvestmen-related notes and files.”

“Of course. We’ve just been talking about all that. Sorry for the dumb question.”

“No such thing, my friend. As regards this manuscript here before us, I’m asking you to read it and react to it. To tell me if you think it has merit. It is, without doubt, the most personal work I’ve done. It’s not a novel at all, but a collection of short stories set in my fictional East Tennessee county of Burley County, which you’ll recognize as a disguised version of our own Kincheloe, named after the type of tobacco that is our long-time cash crop here. Most of what is there is derived from actual events, and actual people who have been part of my life.”

Eli was put on the spot. “Like I said, Coleman, writing and editing are two different skills. I am a writer, able to evaluate my own work, but not adept at doing the same for the work of others, as, say, a skillful acquisitions editor at a publishing house would do. Or a perceptive literary agent.”

“Are you refusing me, then?”

With the taste of a flawless meal and good wine lingering on his tongue and the key to Caldwell’s own private office now in his pocket, Eli owed the man. He was stuck.

“I’ll read it,” he heard himself saying. “I’ll give you an honest reaction. But be aware that even if I love the manuscript, I have no inroad, no special positioning, to do anything with it. So far I’m an author of paperback originals, for God’s sake! Not even a hardcover. In the world of books, my usual meal is humble pie. Your own track record is far more impressive than mine.”

“But my track runs through the past, not the present. It may be that a young and talented eye will see something in my work to recommend it, or that perhaps hampers it and needs excision or revision. As writers we must be willing to ‘kill our darlings,’ as the saying goes.”

“Yes. Just out of curiosity, what can you tell me about your new manuscript? As ‘just regular folk’ would put the question, what’s it about?”

“It’s untitled so far, if that matters. Maybe your reading of it will bring a title to your mind that I’ll be able to use. As for the book itself, you’ll recognize a good deal of Tylerville in my fictional community of Barton. Keep in mind, of course, that names are changed for both people and places, and reality-based personalities may not fully reflect their real-life incarnations. I find it convenient at times to combine characteristics and personalities of people I know and blend them into a single character.”

“I did the same in my own novel, and again as I work on the sequels.”

“Tell me some about how you are approaching those sequels, if you would. Sequels, I know from experience, present their own special challenges.”

And so the conversation drifted away from Harvestman Lodge and half-understood mysteries and became shoptalk between two writers. Melinda listened with mild interest for a while, then the richness of the fine dinner she’d eaten, the extra glass of wine she’d drunk, the comfort of the loveseat on which she sat half reclining, and the coziness of the book-lined room all combined to make her eyelids heavy, and before long she dozed while the two men droned on quietly, their voices in the present setting quite mesmerizing.

Chapter Forty

MELINDA THAT NIGHT WOUND up the possessor of the new, untitled Caldwell manuscript. Eli was more interested in getting his hands soon upon whatever he could find in Caldwell’s old office in the Arcade that might illuminate more of the history of the Harvestmen.

Though Melinda was tired and eager for rest, she pulled a small stack of pages from the box after she went to bed, and began to read, curious as to Caldwell’s writing style.

An hour later she was still reading despite drooping eyes and a heavy, thick feeling inside her skull. Caldwell had snared her, and after each page she thought:
Just one more page,
then she would read three more instead. At one-thirty in the morning she was up, making coffee, unwilling to sleep until she’d read all she could.

Sipping her second cup in bed and hoping the caffeine wouldn’t keep her awake the entire night through, Melinda again became engrossed in the manuscript. She was particularly drawn to one story that felt so real Melinda wondered if it was really fiction at all, or a true recounting presented with altered names.