INCOMPLETE SENTENCE:
PROLOGUE
Tracey Parish sat at the red light and refused to fume, as she often did, over the time she was kept waiting in traffic.
Today, she was glad for the wait. She wasn’t looking forward to reaching her destination and enduring the hostile reception she would surely receive. Still, if she wanted her things back, her grandma’s heirloom quilt, her silver-backed hand mirror, even some of her underwear, she’d have to see Greg one final time.
She blinked back tears. Losing the beautiful quilt that Granny had so lovingly hand-stitched for her would be heart-breaking. She remembered the day the old lady had pulled it from her own ancient hope chest. “See here?” she said, pointing with a bony finger, “There’s your initials, Sugar. When you get married, you can embroider your groom’s next to ‘em.”
Wherever she went, Tracey had taken that quilt with her. It still bore the fragrance of Yardley’s English Lavender, Granny’s favorite soap.
During that last terrible phone call, Greg had threatened to throw out it and all her treasured possessions or burn them. He’d do it, too. She’d seen him do much worse.
A man in a neighboring car smiled at her, but she kept her expression neutral. Her flirting days were over, now that she and Johnny had found each other again.
The light changed, but her own lane was still red. As the turning cars streamed past, she pulled the scarf from her head and let her long blonde hair cascade over her shoulders. It felt good to have the rental car’s top down. Greg had never let her put the top down in his car. How could she have ever let him run her life so completely? How many times had he demeaned her, cheated on her, even hit her, and then assumed everything could be made right with a handful of flowers or a love song murmured in her ear?
She tossed her head. He’d hate it when he saw that her hair was down. He had only wanted her to wear it loose in private, for him.
Her left hand rested on the steering wheel. She held it up and looked at the diamond ring on the third finger. The stone wasn’t very big, but the love behind it was. She’d promised Johnny that they’d be married as soon as she got back from California, even if it meant going to City Hall. Mom and Dad would want a church wedding, but they could do that afterwards.
Why had she ever left Texas? What on earth did California have that Texas didn’t?
“Absolutely nothing!” she said aloud.
She smiled grimly, thinking of how out of place Greg had looked in her tiny hometown, where nobody knew what a great celebrity he was supposed to be. He’d acted like a jerk, looking down on everything: what her family wore, their ranching life, even the blue ribbons that lined the walls of the horse stalls. He hated the food her mother served and snorted when the family bowed their heads to say grace.
Worst of all had been the fistfight between Greg and her brother Hank. She’d never forget the image of her long-haired boyfriend, blood streaming from his nose into his beard, demanding that she leave with him immediately.
She rested her forehead against the steering wheel. “Stupid, stupid girl!” she chided herself. “Why did I go back with him?” She’d left, despite her mother’s tears and her father’s angry words. Her brother had stood on the porch, out of breath, with the saddest expression on his face. He had always understood her, but this time, she could tell he was totally bewildered.
If it hadn’t been for Johnny’s letter, I’d still be here, under Greg’s thumb.
Hank had contacted her former high school boyfriend, who offered to drive out to L.A., pick her up and drive her back to Texas. And she’d accepted, being careful not to let Greg guess her plans.
It was on that trip home that she and Johnny had realized that there was still something special between them, and within one month of arriving back home, she’d accepted his ring.
As she had driven past the old familiar Los Angeles landmarks and made the old familiar turns, her heart had begun to beat faster. This would not be a fun encounter, but maybe it would be okay; maybe he’d be away, out of the apartment.
I don’t have to do this. There’s nothing stopping me from turning around and going right back to the airport.
She frowned. But I can’t let Greg win. I have to show him that I’m my own boss now. He’s not going to burn my wedding quilt. I have a much better use for it.
The light changed. Resolutely, she shifted into drive, merged into traffic and was never seen alive again.
CHAPTER ONE
It was spring in the Adirondacks when the figurative ice jam finally broke.
Early that evening, Gil and I were at our lake house. Baby Janet was fast asleep in her crib. We had built a fire in the fireplace and settled into the sofa with a bowl of popcorn and our respective books when there was a knock on the front door.
Interruptions at odd times weren’t unusual for us, since Gil was editor of the local newspaper—important news doesn’t keep nine-to-five hours—but an unannounced in-the-flesh visitor this late was a little out of the ordinary. We lived seven miles from town, down a dark and inconvenient gravel road. Furthermore, tonight wasn’t a good time. Gil had been on edge and rather secretive lately and I’d hoped to get a chance to talk with him about it.
I sighed and looked through the peephole. “It’s Vern!” I said, startled. Gil’s nephew had considered us personae non gratae ever since the taxi-driving grad student had gotten himself into trouble with the law and we’d declined to cover it up. The incident had a happy ending, but Vern still nursed a grudge. It was painful, but over the ensuing year I’d gradually accustomed myself to his snubs about town.
“Hi, Amelia,” Vern said when I opened the door. His gaze avoided mine. “Gil here, too?”
“This is a surprise.” I stepped back. “Yes. Come in.”
He didn’t reply, just plunged his hands in his pants pockets and ambled down the hall into our rustic living room.
Gil stood, frowning. “What’s up, kid?” he asked, his tone kindly, but reserved.
Vern’s long arm waved in the air. “Sit down, please, both of you.”
We sat.
So did Vern. His long legs seemed uncertain where to place themselves. He looked around. “The house looks about the same,” he commented. Vern had lived with us during the first few months of our marriage.
Gil reached for the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and jerked his head towards a door down the hall. “Janet has your room now. She keeps it neater than you did.” He offered the bowl to Vern, who shook his head.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I said.
He fidgeted with his hands. “Nope. Um, thank you. I better get this said: I’m sorry.”
Gil and I looked at each other. I’d been earnestly hoping, indeed praying, for reconciliation with Vern for over a year, but this abrupt apology was a bit of a shock.
Gil leaned forward. “For what, exactly?” he asked sternly.
A little too sternly, in my opinion; my first instinct had been to jump up, run around the coffee table and wrap the boy in a big hug.
Vern ran his hand through his floppy blond mop. “You know, all that stuff about the lunchbox and the police and everything. You were right. Melody helped me see that.” Melody was Vern’s girlfriend.
“She did, huh?” Gil’s face was unreadable.
“Yeah, she pointed out that I’d probably be in jail right now if you hadn’t made me, well, do the right thing. So I’m sorry.” He held his palms upward in entreaty.
“So now you’re sorry.” Gil stood and looked down at his nephew. He pointed at me. “Do you know what you have put this woman through, mister? Do you know that she has tears in her eyes every time she speaks of you?”
Vern looked over at me, his own pale blue eyes wide. “Really?”
“Wait a minute.” It was time I took the floor. “No, not really. Gil’s exaggerating.” I got to my feet and looked at my husband under an arched eyebrow. “Yes, you are.” I turned back to Vern. “We both felt bad that you were so angry with us, but we managed to soldier on. Now, though, I am just so very, very glad that we can put this behind us. I think the occasion calls for a hug.” I suited the action to the word.
Vern stood, his arms extended towards me. “Then you forgive me?”
I embraced him. My nose came in line with his second shirt button. “Yes, of course we do, don’t we, Gil?” I looked back over my shoulder.
He shrugged. “If she can, I guess I can.” Smiling, he extended his hand and Vern shook it.
My eyes did well up at this, and I gave a little silly laugh.
Gil noticed. “See? Tears.”
“I have something else to say,” Vern announced. “But I can’t say it alone.” It only took him a few long strides to reach the door and step outside. In seconds, he was joined by Melody, whose pretty brown eyes held a quizzical expression.
She gripped his elbow tightly. “How did it go?” she asked out of the side of her mouth, nervously tucking a dark curl behind one ear.
“Fine. We’re friends again,” he murmured. He turned towards us and with his arm around her shoulders, said, “Here’s the announcement: we’re—”
“Engaged?” I cried.
Immediately, a blush seemed to begin at Vern’s neck and flow upward.
My gaze traveled to Melody’s left hand.
Her hands were a bit red and rough, an occupational hazard for a student nurse who has to wash them often. There was no ring. She looked up into Vern’s face. “Yes,” she said tenderly. “And we wanted you to be the first to know.”
“As you can see, she doesn’t have a ring yet.” Vern picked up her hand and kissed it. “I’m giving her my Mom’s, but I have to get it from Dad first.”
Vern’s late mother was Gil’s sister. Gil smiled, “That’s a great idea, kid. I know she’d be pleased.”
It was a night for hugs. I hugged Melody, then Vern, then Gil for good measure. I stifled more tears.
Gil hugged Melody, too, and shook hands with Vern again. “You’ve picked well, kid,” he said gruffly.
“Thanks, Gil. And thank you, Auntie Amelia.” He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek.
Auntie Amelia. I sighed happily. The funny, affectionate Vern I knew and loved was back.
“When is the big day?” I asked as the four of us sat down.
The couple exchanged glances. “We’d like it to be fairly soon, before Vern finishes up his Master’s at the end of the summer,” Melody said. “He’s got a job lined up already in Virginia, and—“
“That’s great!” I said, thinking of the current tight job market. Then the sad truth dawned on me. “But wait! That means you’ll be moving away! A long way away!”
Vern shrugged apologetically. “About five, six hundred miles.”
Gil put an arm around my shoulder. “We’ll both be sorry to see you go.”
“We’re not gone just yet,” Vern said. I could see he was uncomfortable with the subject.
I changed it by turning to Melody. “I imagine you’ll be getting married in your hometown.”
She stirred in her seat. “Not exactly. You see, most of my friends—and Vern’s, too—are here. We thought we could get married at my church here in town and—“
“Have your reception at Chez Prentice?” I finished for her.
She nodded.
“Of course! It’s a great idea!” My old family house was now a B&B and I was part owner. “I’ll call Marie and Etienne tomorrow and get them started on it right away. Oh, this is going to be wonderful!”
Gil chuckled. “Give them some breathing room, Amelia. They only just got engaged.”
“No, I appreciate it,” Melody said. “I’ll need all the help I can get, especially once my mother gets here. She’s, well, she’s kind of strong-minded and has a tendency to, um, take over.”
“Have you met her, Vern?”
“Me?” I could have sworn his ears lay back like a distressed dog’s. “Uh, no, not yet. Just said ‘Hi’ to the whole family on Skype. Her mom seems, er, nice.”
“Have you told your dad yet?” I remembered with a faint pang that Vern’s father struggled with alcoholism.
Vern shook his head. “Can’t catch up with him. As usual.”
Gil said, “He has that new job. That’s probably what it is, pal.” He didn’t often make excuses for his brother-in-law, but it was clearly a time for tact. “I’ll try to call him myself and let him know.”
Later that night, as I gave Janet her eleven-o’clock bottle, I gazed at her beautiful little face and sighed. “Ah, well.”
Gil frowned at me. “What’s wrong?”
“I was just thinking, if only they’d wait a little bit to get married. A couple of years, I mean.”
“What? Why?”
“Then Janet would be big enough to be a flower girl.”
Gil guffawed and turned a page in his book. He brightened. “Hey, think about this: we could decorate her stroller and give it a shove down the aisle!”
I laughed. “And instead of flower petals, she could throw handfuls of Cheerios like she did this morning,” I said, glancing at a large spot on my bathrobe. “Honestly, though, it’s a little bit like our eldest child is leaving the nest, isn’t it?”
“He left the nest over a year ago, honey, remember? Him and that idiotic lunchbox.”
“He and that idiotic lunchbox,” I corrected absently as I burped Janet. “Well, at least we’re friends again.”
CHAPTER TWO
“Gil, how long is this going to go on?”
My husband maintained his customary wry aplomb as he pulled our car into the driveway of the Chez Prentice B&B. “Honey, I’m the wrong person to ask; talk to Etienne. He’s your business partner.”
“I know that; I’m just sick of all this mess. How long are they going to keep this up? They’ve been at it for over a week now. It looks terrible!”
Indeed, the generous front yard of my family’s ancestral home on Jury Street had been reduced to a vast patch of dirt by a crew of workers, supervised by Manuel Esperanza, a jovial, barrel-chested man in a grimy baseball cap who was fond of playing loud salsa music on a portable radio.
The elegantly-lettered sign, “Chez Prentice, a Victorian Bed and Breakfast,” had been relegated to the front porch, where it leaned dejectedly against the railing. The lawn in front of my family’s lovely hundred-year-old house looked like a wasteland.
Hurriedly, I heaved a diaper bag over my shoulder and retrieved Janet in her baby seat before shutting the car’s back door. Gil leaned out of the driver’s window. “Want me to help you with that?”
With the heavy, basket-shaped baby carrier in my hands, I braced my legs and smiled at him. “No, thanks, I’m used to it by now. You go on to work.”
With a wave, he began backing out.
“Write something positive today!” I called after him. We had a running debate over the popular “if it bleeds, it leads” philosophy of journalism. Lately, Gil’s newspaper had taken on a decidedly sensational slant.
Janet was just beginning to wake up from her nap and the loud music and shouts of the workers didn’t do anything to cheer her. She whimpered and struggled to get out of the carrier as I step-dragged my load around the dirt and tried to make use of the soil-dotted sidewalk.
“She’s getting too big for this thing,” I grumbled under my breath as my business partner, Etienne LeBow, dashed out of the front door and skittered down the steps.
He reached out. “’Ere, let me take ‘er,” he said in the French-Canadian accent I usually found so charming.
“Etienne, what are you doing now?” I demanded, “And how much longer are we going to have to put up with this mess?”
“Du calme, Amelia, du calme,” he said as he ushered us into the front hallway. “As I told you, Manuel Esperanza is fantastique with lawns—a genius with a tiller—and I was lucky to get him,” he added confidentially with a pat to my shoulder. “The result will be magnifique, you’ll see.” He set Janet’s carrier on the floor.
“I don’t care if he can split the atom, when’s he going to be finished?” By this time, Janet was vigorously demanding to be released. I extracted the baby from the carrier and hefted her on one hip. At the sight of Etienne, the tears stopped, she smiled her enchanting gummy grin and reached for him.
He spoke directly to the baby, “Sorry, ma petite, I ’ave no time.” He shook his head, adjusted his expensive tie and turned back to me. “I ’ave to leave soon.” Etienne was a successful entrepreneur and made the sixty-mile trip back and forth across the Canadian border frequently to transact business of various kinds. He well deserved his nickname my friend Lily had given him: the Millionaire from Montreal.
Though he was clearly pressed for time, he paused long enough to explain, “Amelia, à l’arrière, c’est superb, mais. . . ” he trailed off as he gestured towards the front door.
“Yes, the back garden is gorgeous; you did a fabulous job on it, but—”
“We ’ave ’ad two summer weddings booked there already,” he pointed out, giving his index finger to Janet, who grabbed it eagerly and tried without success to pull it to her mouth. “But as I said, the front, when you compare—” he clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“But why tear up the front yard right now?”
Etienne smiled as he continued the playful tug-of-war with the baby. “Printemps, Amelia, Spring! The temperature is warm, the sun shines, c’est parfait!” The charm offensive worked. Once again, he was the suave, handsome Frenchman who so reminded me of the late actor Louis Jourdan of Gigi fame. “Besides, the work will be finished in just a few days and it will be beautiful.”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” I said, adding in my slightly stern teacher voice, “but please remember that we’re equal partners and in the future, I’d like to be consulted on such things.”
“Of course! Bien sur!” he said, backing away in the direction of the office. He glanced at his watch. “Pardon, I must go. I am sorry for the mess, but Manuel ’ad an opening today—“
I laughed. “I know, I know, he’s Stradivarius of the tiller.” As he disappeared into the B&B office that had been my father’s study, I murmured to myself, “Okay, Stradivarius is famous more for making violins rather than playing them. Have to work on that metaphor.” Such self-editing was an English teacher’s occupational hazard.
I carried Janet into the B&B’s kitchen, where housekeeper Hester Swanson was pouring coffee for Etienne’s wife, Marie. They were engaged in an animated discussion.
“They found her body in a big trunk in his apartment,” Hester said with a disapproving shake of the head. “That poor girl--I remember her name was Tracey, Tracey Parish--had been all folded up in there for a year at least, wrapped up in a quilt, they said on that show. He’d stabbed her with a Bowie knife over a dozen times! It was the smell give it away, they said,” she added with a shudder that seemed to shake her entire buxom frame.
Marie stirred sugar into her coffee. “Didn’t you also hear them say that he disappeared after he jumped bail? That was years and years ago and they never found him. The guy’s probably dead by now.” She took a sip. “Sick guy like that, he could of committed suicide or something.” She adjusted an earring. Since coming to work at Chez Prentice, petite, dark-haired Marie had gone from wearing jeans and sweatshirts to attractive business suits and elegant costume jewelry.
I hesitated in the doorway with my daughter in my arms. “What on earth are you two talking about?”
Hester brought her own coffee mug over to the big round kitchen table and took a seat. She pushed back a few stray gray hairs that had escaped her casual bun. “A TV show last night: BOLO: Be On The Lookout. It’s where they show the crimes using actors and give you a phone number to call if you know anything. They had a story about this guy, the Ras . . . ras . . . something Killer. Rats something.” She held up the paper and pointed to a fuzzily reproduced black-and-white police photo of a gaunt young man with long hair and a thick beard of an indeterminate shade. “Now, today, they got an article about it in the paper. That’s him.”
That’s he, I thought. Nobody says it right any more.
“Rasputin Killer,” Marie corrected. “He was called that, supposably after that Russian guy in history. And because his name sounds like it: Rasmussen.”
I cringed inwardly a second time. Not supposably, but supposedly. I kept my own counsel, however. Correcting someone’s speech outside the classroom was a good way to lose a friend. Instead, I said, “Not a very flattering nickname. Rasputin was reputed to be a very evil man.”
Marie took a sip of her coffee and said, “Says in the paper that the California news people started to call him that when he first got famous, because he could get the politicians to do just about anything he wanted. Like the guy did with the Russian king.”
“The czar,” I put in.
Hester took up the thread. “And when he killed his girlfriend, like I said, stabbed her a bunch of times—this guy in this article, not the Russian—and when they caught him, he had lots of those important bigwig friends to stand up for him and the judge let him out on bail before the trial and he just disappeared!” She waved theatrically. “They tried him in absentee—I think that’s the word.”
“In absentia,” I blurted in spite of myself. Why on earth is Gil putting all this disgusting stuff in the paper?
“Anyways, they found him guilty. The paper says one time they thought they’d found him in Mexico, but by the time they got down there, he was gone, maybe back to the States.”
“But get this, Amelia,” Marie said, eagerly leaning forward, “It also says that they now--” She squinted down at the newspaper before her, tracing the words with a forefinger as she read aloud, “ ‘—have evidence that leads them to conclude that Rasmussen may have traveled to either Northern Europe or to the Adirondack region of New York State!’ ”
Hester shuddered once more and glanced over her shoulder. “Just think: he could be around here somewhere! Maybe somebody you see on the street or something. I tell you, it gives me the creeps!”
It was spring in the Adirondacks when the figurative ice jam finally broke.
Early that evening, Gil and I were at our lake house. Baby Janet was fast asleep in her crib. We had built a fire in the fireplace and settled into the sofa with a bowl of popcorn and our respective books when there was a knock on the front door.
Interruptions at odd times weren’t unusual for us, since Gil was editor of the local newspaper—important news doesn’t keep nine-to-five hours—but an unannounced in-the-flesh visitor this late was a little out of the ordinary. We lived seven miles from town, down a dark and inconvenient gravel road. Furthermore, tonight wasn’t a good time. Gil had been on edge and rather secretive lately and I’d hoped to get a chance to talk with him about it.
I sighed and looked through the peephole. “It’s Vern!” I said, startled. Gil’s nephew had considered us personae non gratae ever since the taxi-driving grad student had gotten himself into trouble with the law and we’d declined to cover it up. The incident had a happy ending, but Vern still nursed a grudge. It was painful, but over the ensuing year I’d gradually accustomed myself to his snubs about town.
“Hi, Amelia,” Vern said when I opened the door. His gaze avoided mine. “Gil here, too?”
“This is a surprise.” I stepped back. “Yes. Come in.”
He didn’t reply, just plunged his hands in his pants pockets and ambled down the hall into our rustic living room.
Gil stood, frowning. “What’s up, kid?” he asked, his tone kindly, but reserved.
Vern’s long arm waved in the air. “Sit down, please, both of you.”
We sat.
So did Vern. His long legs seemed uncertain where to place themselves. He looked around. “The house looks about the same,” he commented. Vern had lived with us during the first few months of our marriage.
Gil reached for the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and jerked his head towards a door down the hall. “Janet has your room now. She keeps it neater than you did.” He offered the bowl to Vern, who shook his head.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I said.
He fidgeted with his hands. “Nope. Um, thank you. I better get this said: I’m sorry.”
Gil and I looked at each other. I’d been earnestly hoping, indeed praying, for reconciliation with Vern for over a year, but this abrupt apology was a bit of a shock.
Gil leaned forward. “For what, exactly?” he asked sternly.
A little too sternly, in my opinion; my first instinct had been to jump up, run around the coffee table and wrap the boy in a big hug.
Vern ran his hand through his floppy blond mop. “You know, all that stuff about the lunchbox and the police and everything. You were right. Melody helped me see that.” Melody was Vern’s girlfriend.
“She did, huh?” Gil’s face was unreadable.
“Yeah, she pointed out that I’d probably be in jail right now if you hadn’t made me, well, do the right thing. So I’m sorry.” He held his palms upward in entreaty.
“So now you’re sorry.” Gil stood and looked down at his nephew. He pointed at me. “Do you know what you have put this woman through, mister? Do you know that she has tears in her eyes every time she speaks of you?”
Vern looked over at me, his own pale blue eyes wide. “Really?”
“Wait a minute.” It was time I took the floor. “No, not really. Gil’s exaggerating.” I got to my feet and looked at my husband under an arched eyebrow. “Yes, you are.” I turned back to Vern. “We both felt bad that you were so angry with us, but we managed to soldier on. Now, though, I am just so very, very glad that we can put this behind us. I think the occasion calls for a hug.” I suited the action to the word.
Vern stood, his arms extended towards me. “Then you forgive me?”
I embraced him. My nose came in line with his second shirt button. “Yes, of course we do, don’t we, Gil?” I looked back over my shoulder.
He shrugged. “If she can, I guess I can.” Smiling, he extended his hand and Vern shook it.
My eyes did well up at this, and I gave a little silly laugh.
Gil noticed. “See? Tears.”
“I have something else to say,” Vern announced. “But I can’t say it alone.” It only took him a few long strides to reach the door and step outside. In seconds, he was joined by Melody, whose pretty brown eyes held a quizzical expression.
She gripped his elbow tightly. “How did it go?” she asked out of the side of her mouth, nervously tucking a dark curl behind one ear.
“Fine. We’re friends again,” he murmured. He turned towards us and with his arm around her shoulders, said, “Here’s the announcement: we’re—”
“Engaged?” I cried.
Immediately, a blush seemed to begin at Vern’s neck and flow upward.
My gaze traveled to Melody’s left hand.
Her hands were a bit red and rough, an occupational hazard for a student nurse who has to wash them often. There was no ring. She looked up into Vern’s face. “Yes,” she said tenderly. “And we wanted you to be the first to know.”
“As you can see, she doesn’t have a ring yet.” Vern picked up her hand and kissed it. “I’m giving her my Mom’s, but I have to get it from Dad first.”
Vern’s late mother was Gil’s sister. Gil smiled, “That’s a great idea, kid. I know she’d be pleased.”
It was a night for hugs. I hugged Melody, then Vern, then Gil for good measure. I stifled more tears.
Gil hugged Melody, too, and shook hands with Vern again. “You’ve picked well, kid,” he said gruffly.
“Thanks, Gil. And thank you, Auntie Amelia.” He leaned down and kissed me on the cheek.
Auntie Amelia. I sighed happily. The funny, affectionate Vern I knew and loved was back.
“When is the big day?” I asked as the four of us sat down.
The couple exchanged glances. “We’d like it to be fairly soon, before Vern finishes up his Master’s at the end of the summer,” Melody said. “He’s got a job lined up already in Virginia, and—“
“That’s great!” I said, thinking of the current tight job market. Then the sad truth dawned on me. “But wait! That means you’ll be moving away! A long way away!”
Vern shrugged apologetically. “About five, six hundred miles.”
Gil put an arm around my shoulder. “We’ll both be sorry to see you go.”
“We’re not gone just yet,” Vern said. I could see he was uncomfortable with the subject.
I changed it by turning to Melody. “I imagine you’ll be getting married in your hometown.”
She stirred in her seat. “Not exactly. You see, most of my friends—and Vern’s, too—are here. We thought we could get married at my church here in town and—“
“Have your reception at Chez Prentice?” I finished for her.
She nodded.
“Of course! It’s a great idea!” My old family house was now a B&B and I was part owner. “I’ll call Marie and Etienne tomorrow and get them started on it right away. Oh, this is going to be wonderful!”
Gil chuckled. “Give them some breathing room, Amelia. They only just got engaged.”
“No, I appreciate it,” Melody said. “I’ll need all the help I can get, especially once my mother gets here. She’s, well, she’s kind of strong-minded and has a tendency to, um, take over.”
“Have you met her, Vern?”
“Me?” I could have sworn his ears lay back like a distressed dog’s. “Uh, no, not yet. Just said ‘Hi’ to the whole family on Skype. Her mom seems, er, nice.”
“Have you told your dad yet?” I remembered with a faint pang that Vern’s father struggled with alcoholism.
Vern shook his head. “Can’t catch up with him. As usual.”
Gil said, “He has that new job. That’s probably what it is, pal.” He didn’t often make excuses for his brother-in-law, but it was clearly a time for tact. “I’ll try to call him myself and let him know.”
Later that night, as I gave Janet her eleven-o’clock bottle, I gazed at her beautiful little face and sighed. “Ah, well.”
Gil frowned at me. “What’s wrong?”
“I was just thinking, if only they’d wait a little bit to get married. A couple of years, I mean.”
“What? Why?”
“Then Janet would be big enough to be a flower girl.”
Gil guffawed and turned a page in his book. He brightened. “Hey, think about this: we could decorate her stroller and give it a shove down the aisle!”
I laughed. “And instead of flower petals, she could throw handfuls of Cheerios like she did this morning,” I said, glancing at a large spot on my bathrobe. “Honestly, though, it’s a little bit like our eldest child is leaving the nest, isn’t it?”
“He left the nest over a year ago, honey, remember? Him and that idiotic lunchbox.”
“He and that idiotic lunchbox,” I corrected absently as I burped Janet. “Well, at least we’re friends again.”
CHAPTER TWO
“Gil, how long is this going to go on?”
My husband maintained his customary wry aplomb as he pulled our car into the driveway of the Chez Prentice B&B. “Honey, I’m the wrong person to ask; talk to Etienne. He’s your business partner.”
“I know that; I’m just sick of all this mess. How long are they going to keep this up? They’ve been at it for over a week now. It looks terrible!”
Indeed, the generous front yard of my family’s ancestral home on Jury Street had been reduced to a vast patch of dirt by a crew of workers, supervised by Manuel Esperanza, a jovial, barrel-chested man in a grimy baseball cap who was fond of playing loud salsa music on a portable radio.
The elegantly-lettered sign, “Chez Prentice, a Victorian Bed and Breakfast,” had been relegated to the front porch, where it leaned dejectedly against the railing. The lawn in front of my family’s lovely hundred-year-old house looked like a wasteland.
Hurriedly, I heaved a diaper bag over my shoulder and retrieved Janet in her baby seat before shutting the car’s back door. Gil leaned out of the driver’s window. “Want me to help you with that?”
With the heavy, basket-shaped baby carrier in my hands, I braced my legs and smiled at him. “No, thanks, I’m used to it by now. You go on to work.”
With a wave, he began backing out.
“Write something positive today!” I called after him. We had a running debate over the popular “if it bleeds, it leads” philosophy of journalism. Lately, Gil’s newspaper had taken on a decidedly sensational slant.
Janet was just beginning to wake up from her nap and the loud music and shouts of the workers didn’t do anything to cheer her. She whimpered and struggled to get out of the carrier as I step-dragged my load around the dirt and tried to make use of the soil-dotted sidewalk.
“She’s getting too big for this thing,” I grumbled under my breath as my business partner, Etienne LeBow, dashed out of the front door and skittered down the steps.
He reached out. “’Ere, let me take ‘er,” he said in the French-Canadian accent I usually found so charming.
“Etienne, what are you doing now?” I demanded, “And how much longer are we going to have to put up with this mess?”
“Du calme, Amelia, du calme,” he said as he ushered us into the front hallway. “As I told you, Manuel Esperanza is fantastique with lawns—a genius with a tiller—and I was lucky to get him,” he added confidentially with a pat to my shoulder. “The result will be magnifique, you’ll see.” He set Janet’s carrier on the floor.
“I don’t care if he can split the atom, when’s he going to be finished?” By this time, Janet was vigorously demanding to be released. I extracted the baby from the carrier and hefted her on one hip. At the sight of Etienne, the tears stopped, she smiled her enchanting gummy grin and reached for him.
He spoke directly to the baby, “Sorry, ma petite, I ’ave no time.” He shook his head, adjusted his expensive tie and turned back to me. “I ’ave to leave soon.” Etienne was a successful entrepreneur and made the sixty-mile trip back and forth across the Canadian border frequently to transact business of various kinds. He well deserved his nickname my friend Lily had given him: the Millionaire from Montreal.
Though he was clearly pressed for time, he paused long enough to explain, “Amelia, à l’arrière, c’est superb, mais. . . ” he trailed off as he gestured towards the front door.
“Yes, the back garden is gorgeous; you did a fabulous job on it, but—”
“We ’ave ’ad two summer weddings booked there already,” he pointed out, giving his index finger to Janet, who grabbed it eagerly and tried without success to pull it to her mouth. “But as I said, the front, when you compare—” he clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“But why tear up the front yard right now?”
Etienne smiled as he continued the playful tug-of-war with the baby. “Printemps, Amelia, Spring! The temperature is warm, the sun shines, c’est parfait!” The charm offensive worked. Once again, he was the suave, handsome Frenchman who so reminded me of the late actor Louis Jourdan of Gigi fame. “Besides, the work will be finished in just a few days and it will be beautiful.”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” I said, adding in my slightly stern teacher voice, “but please remember that we’re equal partners and in the future, I’d like to be consulted on such things.”
“Of course! Bien sur!” he said, backing away in the direction of the office. He glanced at his watch. “Pardon, I must go. I am sorry for the mess, but Manuel ’ad an opening today—“
I laughed. “I know, I know, he’s Stradivarius of the tiller.” As he disappeared into the B&B office that had been my father’s study, I murmured to myself, “Okay, Stradivarius is famous more for making violins rather than playing them. Have to work on that metaphor.” Such self-editing was an English teacher’s occupational hazard.
I carried Janet into the B&B’s kitchen, where housekeeper Hester Swanson was pouring coffee for Etienne’s wife, Marie. They were engaged in an animated discussion.
“They found her body in a big trunk in his apartment,” Hester said with a disapproving shake of the head. “That poor girl--I remember her name was Tracey, Tracey Parish--had been all folded up in there for a year at least, wrapped up in a quilt, they said on that show. He’d stabbed her with a Bowie knife over a dozen times! It was the smell give it away, they said,” she added with a shudder that seemed to shake her entire buxom frame.
Marie stirred sugar into her coffee. “Didn’t you also hear them say that he disappeared after he jumped bail? That was years and years ago and they never found him. The guy’s probably dead by now.” She took a sip. “Sick guy like that, he could of committed suicide or something.” She adjusted an earring. Since coming to work at Chez Prentice, petite, dark-haired Marie had gone from wearing jeans and sweatshirts to attractive business suits and elegant costume jewelry.
I hesitated in the doorway with my daughter in my arms. “What on earth are you two talking about?”
Hester brought her own coffee mug over to the big round kitchen table and took a seat. She pushed back a few stray gray hairs that had escaped her casual bun. “A TV show last night: BOLO: Be On The Lookout. It’s where they show the crimes using actors and give you a phone number to call if you know anything. They had a story about this guy, the Ras . . . ras . . . something Killer. Rats something.” She held up the paper and pointed to a fuzzily reproduced black-and-white police photo of a gaunt young man with long hair and a thick beard of an indeterminate shade. “Now, today, they got an article about it in the paper. That’s him.”
That’s he, I thought. Nobody says it right any more.
“Rasputin Killer,” Marie corrected. “He was called that, supposably after that Russian guy in history. And because his name sounds like it: Rasmussen.”
I cringed inwardly a second time. Not supposably, but supposedly. I kept my own counsel, however. Correcting someone’s speech outside the classroom was a good way to lose a friend. Instead, I said, “Not a very flattering nickname. Rasputin was reputed to be a very evil man.”
Marie took a sip of her coffee and said, “Says in the paper that the California news people started to call him that when he first got famous, because he could get the politicians to do just about anything he wanted. Like the guy did with the Russian king.”
“The czar,” I put in.
Hester took up the thread. “And when he killed his girlfriend, like I said, stabbed her a bunch of times—this guy in this article, not the Russian—and when they caught him, he had lots of those important bigwig friends to stand up for him and the judge let him out on bail before the trial and he just disappeared!” She waved theatrically. “They tried him in absentee—I think that’s the word.”
“In absentia,” I blurted in spite of myself. Why on earth is Gil putting all this disgusting stuff in the paper?
“Anyways, they found him guilty. The paper says one time they thought they’d found him in Mexico, but by the time they got down there, he was gone, maybe back to the States.”
“But get this, Amelia,” Marie said, eagerly leaning forward, “It also says that they now--” She squinted down at the newspaper before her, tracing the words with a forefinger as she read aloud, “ ‘—have evidence that leads them to conclude that Rasmussen may have traveled to either Northern Europe or to the Adirondack region of New York State!’ ”
Hester shuddered once more and glanced over her shoulder. “Just think: he could be around here somewhere! Maybe somebody you see on the street or something. I tell you, it gives me the creeps!”
