“I just can’t seem to get him out of my mind. I mean, Mary took twelve pairs of my earrings the other day, and I didn’t even yell at her. I feel like I don’t have the energy to yell at my own sister,” she said.

  “What did you do about it?”

  “I just went over and dumped out her book bag and took them back.”

  “And this is bad?” I asked, thinking that, finally, I would get some peace in the house.

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “When I don’t even feel like yelling at my brat sister for taking something that was clearly mine, there is something wrong,” she said.

  I chose my words carefully. I didn’t want to scare her off. “Well, what is it that you think is wrong?” I asked.

  She burst into tears. Big fat tears rolled down her face, and that damn chin trembled—which usually does me in—and then she swiped at the streaks on her face and took a deep breath. “Do you think he was somebody’s dad?” she asked.

  I couldn’t help it. The tears welled in my eyes. I had to fight to keep them in check. She was so sincere, and even if the guy was a hit man from Chicago, Rachel clearly saw him as a person. I reached over and squeezed her hand. “Oh, baby, I don’t know if he had kids or not,” I said.

  “But he was somebody’s son. Everybody comes from someone,” she said.

  “Yes, that’s true,” I said.

  “It’s just creeping me out that somebody’s son or dad or brother bounced on the concrete in front of me. Dead. But it’s not only that, Mom. I’m sad that somebody’s son bounced at all. It makes me so sad, I just don’t know what to do about it,” she said, and sobbed.

  I got up and hugged her then. “It’s okay,” I said.

  “All the kids are making fun of me,” she said through snot. It was like her face had suddenly turned into a lawn sprinkler. There was wet stuff coming from everywhere. I jumped up to get her a paper towel. It was the only thing handy.

  “Why? You can’t help it if Mr. Gianino put you in the front line.”

  “No, because I’m sad over it. Every time I start crying over this whole thing, they all make fun of me.”

  “Well, honey, they’re just callous,” I said.

  “Riley doesn’t make fun of me, though. He told me that he’d like to kill the guy for being dead and scaring me,” she said, and laughed through the tears. “I told him that was hardly possible and would only add to the problem.”

  “Well, I’m glad Riley is standing behind you,” I said. I really was happy about that. He’d proven to me that he really cared about Rachel, and that was all I could ever ask of anybody involved with my children.

  “I just can’t get it out of my mind. I’ve tried reading or playing board games or video games. None of it helps. About the only time I don’t think of it is when I’m watching a really good movie or something,” she said.

  “It’ll get better. I swear,” I said.

  “You promise?” she asked.

  “I promise,” I said.

  With that, she got up and took the entire container of cookie-dough ice cream out of the freezer, got a spoon, and headed off to the living room. I had to do something or her mind would turn to mush and she’d gain twenty pounds. I’d bought ice cream five times since Saturday, and she’d eaten all of it.

  I picked up the phone and dialed Eg Hanshaw. “Eg,” I said, “I need to talk to you about building a stable.”

  Later, after eating dinner and helping the girls with their homework, I was upstairs seated at my desk. I booted up the computer and then went to Google and typed in some of the names on Bill’s family tree. I discovered that one of his ancestors connected him back to Charlemagne. I checked a few of my books on royal genealogy, just to make sure whoever posted the family on the Net had the lineage correct. Bill did not have this info down on his charts. It was possible that he didn’t have a clue about it. Well, if he didn’t know he was descended from kings, I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him. All I needed was Bill feeling justified in his Henry Vlll behavior.

  I surfed the Net for a while, looking for quarter horse breeders in Missouri. Then I checked out some breeders of draft horses. We wouldn’t really have any need for a draft horse, of course, but they’re so sweet-natured, at least in my experience. I found a few breeders and saved their Web sites to my favorite places. Rudy would probably have a fit when I told him I was thinking of buying the kids a horse, but I thought it would be good for them. Rachel certainly needed something right now to throw herself into, other than television and mountains of ice cream.

  I checked my e-mail. Colin had sent me a link to his brand new Web site. I clicked on it and up came a picture of Colin in his uniform. There was a photograph of all of us at his wedding. Interesting to see me listed on his Web site under “family.” There was also a great picture of him and my mother on the cruise they took last year. Colin had wanted to go to the Bahamas, but my mother had wanted to go to Greece. My mother won.

  It was bizarre to see my mother in the context of somebody’s wife. She’d been my mother for so many years that it was almost startling to think of her any other way. She was my mom, she was a grandma, and she was an artist, but she hadn’t been somebody’s wife in so long, I’d forgotten that was an option. I studied the photograph of them on the boat. Her gray hair had multiplied tenfold in the past few years, and she had crow’s-feet, but her skin was gorgeous, and her oval face and brown eyes were just as beautiful as ever. Hardly up to Hollywood standards of beauty, yet there she was, smiling out at the camera. Beautiful. Proof that true beauty doesn’t come in a bottle or at the end of a knife.

  Colin’s Web site happened to make me think of Bill’s. I typed in Bill’s name, and his site unfolded. He’d gotten his oldest daughter, Karri, to write the introduction. “Hi, all! This is my father, the mayor of New Kassel.” Karri has such finely tempered features that her face is calming to look at. She got her looks from her mother, for certain, because Mrs. Castlereagh has that same calming nature about her. I maneuvered around the Web page and finally clicked on the bio section.

  I come from a tiny town down in Granite County, Missouri, called New Kassel. I graduated from St. Louis University in 1970 with a major in political science and a minor in business.

  I didn’t really want to hear about his accomplishments. I was afraid there’d be a saving-a-baby-from-a-burning-building story, and then I’d throw up all over my desk. I skipped on down.

  As a child, I can remember looking out on the Mississippi River, thinking it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. It was the giver and taker of life. I remember long lazy summer days, drinking lemonade and running through fields of cornflowers and daisies, thinking that the world was indeed a charmed place. As mayor, that’s what I think of every day when I go to work. I want to preserve that way of life for all of those children growing up in the generations after me.

  Oh, brother, I was going to throw up anyway.

  I was about ready to log off when I saw a column about things of interest in New Kassel. I clicked on it. He had several shops listed, along with places to stay. Several icons were devoted to our festivals and events. There were even photographs posted of our last Strawberry Festival. He had a link to the hunting and fishing Web site of Granite County. Last but not least was the historical society. He mentioned Sylvia and Wilma Pershing, the founders of the historical society and for decades the president and vice president. He did not mention me or any of the other current officers. Not that I expected him to. No, this was exactly what I expected from him.

  The mayor hides in his office on most days and does nothing. He reaps the benefits of the very hardworking staffs of the historical society and the events coordinator board. Yes, I happen to be on both staffs, but they are made up of more than just me. I can think of twenty people right now who are responsible for all the tourist events that make our town money.

  You’d never know it from the mayor’s Web site.

  Now I was angry and nauseated.

  I clicked on his photo icon. I know, I should have stopped, because all that I was achieving by any of this was getting myself angrier by the minute, but it was like a train wreck unfolding before my eyes—I had to keep looking. The photo icon brought up his high school picture. His wedding picture. A picture of him standing in a boat holding up a fifteen-pound catfish with a link to the wildlife and game commission. A photograph of him signing some piece of paper in his office—like he ever really did anything but sign his own checks.

  There was a picture of him as a little boy. The caption read, “Me, one summer evening in my front yard, in front of Old Man River.” He was about four years old in the photograph, wearing a pair of bib overalls and a hat, barefoot and shirtless. He had been cuter than cute, I had to admit.

  Well, I was disgusted enough for one night. I clicked off the computer, made some phone calls to make sure we had enough tractors and horses for the hayrides tomorrow night, and then went to bed. Rudy came up some time later, because I heard him stub his toe and cuss a blue streak.

  At about three in the morning, I was awakened by a noise. I got up and looked out the window that faced the mayor’s house. I didn’t see anything unusual. The trees swayed in the breeze and made dark, spidery shadows against the mayor’s house. I walked over and looked out the window that showed me the river. That was habit. If ever I woke up in the middle of the night, I would go and watch the boats and barges going up and down the river. This would be the thing I missed the most when we moved into the new house. When I looked out that window, though, I sucked in a breath and jumped behind my curtain.

  Down below I could see two figures standing in front of the railroad tracks with the river flowing behind them. I couldn’t tell who they were from this distance. It was far too dark. I opened my window just a crack, kneeled down, and placed my ear next to the sill, trying to hear what was being said—as if their words would be carried across the road and my yard and float up to my window. Nosy people know no bounds.

  Then the strangest thing happened. They started shouting, and suddenly I could hear their words. Well, at least some of them. The two people looked angry. Arms started flailing about. One shoved the other and then pointed a finger at him. The one being threatened backed up, but then he lunged, leaning into the other guy’s face. Who was doing the threatening? I couldn’t tell.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” Rudy said.

  I shrieked, started, and knocked into a bookcase, dislodging one of the shelves. About fifteen books came crashing to the ground. Several of them landed on the backs of my legs.

  “Shhh!” I said, and glanced back out the window. About that time, the two men separated. One walked down River Pointe Road toward the center of town, and the other walked … into the mayor’s yard, opened the mayor’s front door, and stepped inside!

  One of the men had been the mayor.

  “Torie, what are you doing?” Rudy said again.

  “Looking for my contact.”

  “In the middle of the night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you just admit that you’re spying on the neighbors?” he asked, and went back to bed.

  “Oh, my God, Rudy,” I said, shutting the window and then running for the bed. “I just saw Bill outside arguing with somebody.”

  “Hurrah. The man has enemies.”

  “At three in the morning?” I asked, rubbing the backs of my legs.

  “Is it three in the morning?” he snapped, sitting straight up.

  “It … could be,” I said.

  He flopped back down on the bed and groaned. Then he covered his face with his pillow and motioned for me to go away.

  “Who argues outside at three in the morning?” I asked.

  “Somebody whose enemy is pissed off at three in the morning. Speaking of which …”

  “All right,” I said. “I get the picture.”

  I lay back down and nestled under the covers, but I did not go back to sleep.

  Eleven

  The next morning, before I even took the kids to school, I went over and knocked on the mayor’s front door. Nobody answered. I tiptoed through the dew-wet grass to the garage and peeked inside. Bill’s car was gone, but Mrs. Castlereagh should have been at home.

  “Maybe she’s sleeping,” Rudy said from behind me.

  I jumped. “Oh, jeez. Will you please stop doing that!”

  “Sure,” he said. “When you stop snooping on everybody. Torie, what is the matter with you?”

  “What do you mean? I’ve snooped on our neighbors for years, and suddenly it bothers you?” I asked.

  He motioned for me to come out of the mayor’s yard. “Come here,” he said. He looked like somebody who was trying to get a stray dog into the Humane Society truck. I glanced back at the mayor’s house and then went to stand by my husband.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Look, I know you go a little wacky where the mayor is concerned,” he said, making a circle by his ear with his finger. “It’s difficult when you live right next door to the very person who can destroy you. Not in a literal sense, of course. But you have to stop this. He’s going to press charges one of these days. We only have a few months to go before we’ll be far away from him, and our chickens will no longer be threatened by the big bad man. Okay?”

  I blinked at him. “No,” I said. “What is the matter with you?” I asked. “You’ve been so condescending to me … well, ever since I fell through the chicken house.”

  “And what were you doing at the time you fell through the chicken house?” he asked.

  “That’s beside the point,” I said.

  “No, that is the point.”

  I gestured at the mayor’s house. “Look, something is going on in there. We’ve got two different people snooping around his house—”

  “And you would make number three—”

  “And now he was fighting with somebody last night at three in the morning,” I said. “I’ve got a feeling about this, Rudy.”

  He rubbed his forehead.

  “You know what your problem is?” I asked. “Your problem is that you know that when I get these feelings, I’m usually right. You can’t stand it.”

  “I just want to be normal,” he said.

  “Well, snap out of it, because we’re not.” End of conversation. I went and got the kids ready for school, dropped them off, and then headed over to the fire station to check on the stuff for the hayrides.

  Elmer met me on the front lawn of the firehouse with a big smile and a slight lilt in his gait. “Hey, Torie,” he said. “We had a couple more tractor donations for the weekend. We should be able to run eight different hayrides an hour. Last year we could only run five.”

  “Well, that’s wonderful,” I said. “What about horses?”

  “We’ve got four wagons to be hitched up to the horses, so that makes a total of twelve. And I spoke to Ron Burgermeister, and he said he’s got reservations already for the horses all night long. The tractor-pulled hayrides are first come, first serve.”

  “Well, that’s great,” I said.

  “Should be a success.”

  “What about the bonfire? You’ve got one of your engines on standby, right?” I asked.

  “We’re going to take the old one out to the field. Let the kids climb on it and what not. Then, if the bonfire gets away from Chuck, we’ll be there to step in. I think we’ve dotted all of our i’s and crossed all of our t’s,” Elmer said.

  “Well, good,” I said.

  “Are we doing the parade again tomorrow?”

  “No,” I said. “My mother informed me that it would be in bad taste, and once Jalena Brooke has spoken, you kinda have to go with it. At least on matters of good taste.”

  “Isn’t that what mothers are for?” he asked.

  I agreed and then sighed. “Well, then. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Oh, and that new guy … Tiny Tim something-or-other,” he said.

  It took me a minute to remember who he was talking about. The new shop owner in town. “What about him?”

  “He’s having his grand opening this coming week and wanted to know if he could hand out fliers at the hayrides.”

  “Tell him, only when the tourists are coming back from the rides. Not on the way out to the bonfire, or I’ll be picking up fliers for a week. If he gives them the fliers on the way out of town, then they leave them in their car for a month, and that means no trouble for me.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Elmer said. “See you tonight.”

  I ran a few more errands and then stopped at Fraulein Krista’s Speishaus for lunch. I love the food there, but there’s also just something incredibly appealing about grown men and women running around in Hansel and Gretel outfits. Or maybe it’s just me. Whenever I step into the restaurant, it’s like stepping into a restaurant deep in the Black Forest. Bavarian music poured out of the overhead speakers, and Sylvia, the great stuffed bear, sat at the end of the bar with an emerald green scarf tied around her neck. Sylvia had become the town’s mascot.

  I sat in my usual booth and ordered my lunch. I was busy not being a busybody for once. Sam Hill walked in and headed straight for my booth. The whole town knows I’m here on most weekdays between twelve and one. If I’m not here, they start speculating about where I am.

  “Hi, Sam,” I said, and wiped my mouth. “Have a seat.”

  Most of the time, I get my privacy here. I usually bring a book or some work from the historical society with me, but quite often I will be graced with a visitor at lunch. I like that, actually. Well, I complain about it a lot if I’m trying to work or trying to disappear, but in reality it’s quite a compliment, and I feel like I stay connected with my fellow townspeople this way.

  “Hey, Torie.”

  Sam sat down, and I noticed slight purple smudges beneath his wide brown eyes. Something told me he’d been up all night. “What’s going on?” I asked.

 

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