Death in Reel Time Page 4

  Good night, dear diary. I will write more tomorrow.

  Esme let out a sigh. “Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Johnny Hargett, is it? I hope Olivia means it about wanting to know about her father. People always say they want the truth, but sometimes what they’re really hoping is we’ll find something that proves it was all a big misunderstanding. That Uncle Edgar wasn’t really a horse thief; he was borrowing the pony for some emergency. Or that Aunt Gertrude didn’t really steal her best friend’s husband; she was just there to comfort him after the split.”

  “I think Olivia’s going into this with her eyes open,” I said, lifting the jeweler’s loupe from where it dangled from a chain around my neck. I put it to my eye to try to decipher the cancellation stamp on an envelope. “But I’ll talk with her about it to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

  Esme, wearing a paper mask to ward off the dust, was going through the box of Olivia’s grandparents’ things that Daniel had retrieved from the pastor’s wife. She took an envelope from the box and stared at it, then pulled the mask from her face. “This is a letter from Renny to her parents around that same time. Now that you’ve opened the door my curiosity’s got the best of me. I’m gonna have to read it.”

  I wasn’t in any position to protest, since I was the one who’d violated our protocol in the first place. “Go ahead,” I said, “but read it out loud.”

  Esme slid the pages out onto a clean bath mat we use to absorb the dust. She unfolded the thin paper and gently pulled the pages apart, smoothing out each sheet in turn and studying it. “Okay, this is a letter from Renny to her parents. It’s dated October 16, 1941.”

  Dearest Ba-Ba and Ma-Ma,

  I know you are still angry with me and that makes me very sad. I am sorry it has taken me so long to write to you. First I had to get my courage up and then I realized I had no writing tablet so I had to wait until Johnny went into town to get me one. As you know paper is precious these days and having a whole tablet is a luxury.

  I hope that you will someday find it in your hearts to forgive me for leaving to marry without your permission. If I’d had a sliver of hope you would have someday given me your blessing I would have waited, but I knew that day would never come, not for me to be with Johnny. You both had your hearts and minds set against him from the start. So I will say that I am so very sorry for disappointing you, but I am not sorry to be Johnny’s wife.

  I wish you would understand that all the talk of war and the horrors of what is going on overseas makes a person stop and think about putting good things off for a someday that may never come. I am hoping you will write back to me, Ba-Ba, and give me comfort and assure me that God will protect our country and that this will all pass and life will be peaceful and right again, and that you and Ma-Ma will love me still as you always have.

  I am blessed to be welcomed into the Hargett family. Johnny’s brother, Riley, and his wife, Celestine, live next door to us. Their house is close by, just a few steps across the yard. Riley is Johnny’s older brother and together they own this farm their parents left them. It is beautiful here. Our houses are on a hill and we can see the valley below dressed out in autumn glory.

  They rented out most of the farmland this year and the men who planted it are well into the harvest. Riley worked it alone for the past two years but the place is too much for him to handle with just the mules and he hasn’t the money to buy a tractor even if he could get one with things like that so scarce right now. He’s working for now at the livestock barn taking care of the mules coming up for auction.

  As for Johnny, he never had it in his mind to be a farmer. He wants a job where he can use his mind. He’s very smart, which you’ll both come to believe when you get to know him. He really is a swell fellow and he’s good with figures. He’s going to try to get on with the Savings and Loan or maybe at the Tobacco Exchange.

  Riley and Celestine have been so good to me since I came here. They are caring, faithful people anyone would be glad to count as family. Celestine is teaching me to knit but I am a poor student. I get the yarn all tangled and drop stitches then I must ravel everything out and start all over again. Celestine is patient with my fumbling fingers.

  She’s also showing me how to put up the vegetables from the big fall garden she and Riley tend and the fruit from the orchard behind our houses. She belongs to the Home Extension Club and she knows all about the proper way to do these things. We are putting by everything we can as many are saying there will be shortages even worse than now if we go into the war.

  Celestine has complimented me on my cooking, Ma-Ma, and I told her the credit goes to you for having taught me since I was a very little girl, starting with how to cook rice when we were in China.

  I hope that you will come for a visit soon so you can meet them and get to know Johnny better. Until then please know that whether you believe me or not I remain your devoted and loving daughter.

  Renny

  “Well, that answers one question,” Esme said, sliding the letter and envelope into a flat paper bag to await the scanner. “Renny’s parents surely did not give their permission for the marriage.”

  “And considering he ran off on her a short time later, when she was pregnant no less, looks like they were better judges of character than Renny. Sounds like she was a sheltered girl with stars in her eyes,” I said.

  “And she paid dearly for every twinkle,” Esme said.

  “I think what Olivia would really like to know is how her mother felt about her father and all that went on before he left them. That’s certainly what I’d want to know if I were in her shoes. Too bad Renny wasn’t willing to talk with her about it.”

  “It is,” Esme agreed. “My mother talked ceaselessly about my father. I don’t have clear memories of him, since I was only four when he passed. But my mother helped me know him. Hardly a day passed without her mentioning a food he liked, or a piece of music he was fond of or how my laugh sounded like his. She didn’t make him a saint, though. She’d fuss, too, telling me how I left all the kitchen cabinet doors standing wide open just like he used to do, which drove her crazy.”

  “Speaking of things that drive a person crazy,” I said, “why did you accept Daniel’s invitation for both of us yesterday, without even a by-your-leave to me?”

  Esme was unbowed. “You said yes in your head. I can’t help it if I sometimes overhear your thoughts. You think loud. And anyhow you can thank me later. Daniel’s made a few dishes for Olivia to bring to the church potlucks and once folks get wind which one is his they’ll elbow little old ladies out of the way to get to it. He’s good. And it’s a nice way to show his appreciation. I knew you wouldn’t deny him that. And I knew you’d want to go because the others are all coming, including Jack.”

  While Olivia was ill, Jack had brought his landscaping crew over every week to mow her lawn and trim the hedges. These were chores Olivia had taken care of herself right up until the time she was diagnosed. She’d tamed the yard into submission with a push mower and manual garden tools. She’d been a healthy, strong woman and years of constructing the whimsical, kinetic metal sculptures she welded had given her better-than-average upper-body strength. It had been hard for her to accept that she couldn’t manage the upkeep of her house, even temporarily.

  Winston had pitched in with household chores for Olivia. And, of course, kept her supplied with fresh baked goodies. Esme and I had secretly hoped a romance might blossom between the two of them. Winston had been alone for a year, ever since his shrew of a wife, Patsy, had gone off to visit her sister for two weeks then on day fourteen announced she wasn’t coming back. True confession: The last part hadn’t seemed all that tragic to the rest of us. For years we’d wondered how a wonderful man like Winston ever got hooked up with that old crabapple in the first place. But they’d been together a long time and Winston was sad, more for the sake of his kids and grandkids, I suspected. Patsy had turned her back on all of them.

  As for Olivia, she’
d been widowed twice over. Bethany’s father, Quentin Saunders, had been in Vietnam. He survived that hell, but it haunted him. Afterward he became deeply involved in the movement to bring home comrades being held as POWs, and in an anvil-heavy irony he’d been killed in an accident aboard ship when he was returning to Vietnam as a delegate on a negotiating team. He’d gone in peace, not as a warrior, but the war had claimed him all the same.

  My parents had been close to Olivia and Quentin and I’d heard them talk about how devastated Olivia had been. Beth had been conceived just before he left on the mission, so she’d never known her biological father, either. But unlike her own mother, Olivia made certain her daughter knew the man her father had been.

  After Quentin died, Olivia had moved in with his parents and put all her energies into raising Beth. Her in-laws, Silas and Regina, loved her like a daughter. They were concerned about her, submerged as she was in her grief. They tried to get her out into the world to open up new possibilities for her. In fact, it had been Silas who’d introduced her to George Clement, a counselor at the VA center where he volunteered. He invited George to dinner in a flagrant attempt at matchmaking. It worked—eventually. George and Olivia became friends, and a long while later, more than friends. The wedding was held in the backyard at the Saunderses’ home, with Beth as flower girl and Silas and Regina as witnesses.

  George was a good stepfather and a year later Daniel joined the family. Shortly after that both Silas and Regina passed away, leaving the house and all their worldly possessions to Olivia and George.

  The Clement family lived happily together in the house for a little over a decade, before George succumbed to a respiratory ailment, leaving Olivia a two-time widow. Maybe she’d decided not to risk the pain of loss again.

  In any case, Olivia and Winston had remained friends only. But sometimes that’s even better than a romance. At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m with Jack.

  four

  WE’D ARRANGED TO BE AT Olivia’s house an hour before the designated dinner hour on Saturday to do some more interviewing with Olivia before the others arrived. But when we got there she was nowhere to be found. Tony was in the family room, his laptop and a couple of external hard drives set up on the coffee table.

  “I just got in, but I think she’s up resting,” he said, his eyes darting quickly toward the stairs then back to the computer screen. He’d been holding his cup-sized earphones away from his ears, probably hoping for a short interruption, but when we didn’t leave he slipped them down to his neck and clicked the keyboard to stop whatever he was doing. “She had a bad night last night I think,” he said. “I heard her moving around at like three in the morning.”

  “Okay, we won’t disturb her,” I said. “We’ll go in and pack up all the stuff off the dining room table. I assume we’ll need it for dinner.”

  “No worries,” Tony said. “Me and Daniel took care of the dinner venue this morning.” He pointed toward the screened porch that ran the entire length of the back of the house. “We’re all set up out there and we’ve got heaters if it gets chilly. Go look. It’s like something from one of those hipster retro blogs. Daniel’s got the touch for this stuff.”

  Esme and I peeked out and both of us let out an involuntary ooh. Olivia’s house was not fancy and she’d never had the money for much updating, though it was warm and inviting in a lived-in kind of way. But the old house worked in total harmony with Daniel’s décor. He’d traced multiple strands of tiny white lights along the vaulted ceiling of the porch. A long table was appointed with a maroon tablecloth; an ivory runner traced the length, with candles in vintage glass canning jars placed at intervals. Olivia’s mismatched chairs had been draped in slipcovers. Ivory linen napkins telescoped out of wineglasses and each place setting of china was different from all the others.

  “Beautiful,” Esme pronounced, walking out onto the porch. “Look, here’s my place.” There was a place card done in a nice calligraphy. Not as good as mine, but good. I searched for my place, which was set with blue and white china with a windmill design and a blue wineglass and water tumbler. Esme’s was white porcelain with a black and gold band, her glassware amber.

  “He does have the touch,” I said. “Hope the food is as good as the décor.”

  We went back inside, where Tony had resumed his work. We tried to tiptoe through unobtrusively but he pulled the headphones down to his neck.

  “Pretty cool, eh?” he said.

  “Magical,” I said. “What’s this you’re working on?” I pointed toward the computer screen, on which an elderly man was frozen in place, his head back as if he were giving an idea some serious consideration. I recognized him, but only vaguely.

  “Marking the rough footage of one of the interviews with Charlie Martin,” Tony said. “Wanna watch?”

  “You sure we wouldn’t be bothering you?”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m just making notes of where to cut,” he said, pointing to a list of time marker notations. He picked up a little gizmo and attached it to the computer’s port. “I’ll put this splitter on so you can get the audio, but I won’t be able to hear you very well.” He pulled the earphones back up but held them away from his ears. “So don’t think I’m being rude if you say something and I don’t answer.”

  I motioned for him to go ahead and he let the padded earpieces fall into place. Esme was muttering again. Clearly, he hadn’t won her over quite yet.

  Charlie Martin was a grizzled old guy. His hair was cropped close to his scalp and he had a short, unkempt beard and wiry eyebrows that stuck out in all directions, probing the air like little antennae.

  I could see what Tony meant about Beth being good with people. She teased Charlie without being condescending or disrespectful. And when he wasn’t forthcoming she coaxed him along, saying things like “Oh, Charlie, would you tell Tony what you told me before about . . .” This seemed to rev Charlie’s motor when he was about to go into a stall, and so the interview moved right along.

  He talked freely about his time riding the rails when he was a young man, sleeping in hobo camps and working here and there for food. But when Beth started on questions about the war, he turned somber. And when she asked about the men he served with he went totally silent and looked down at his hands. After a few beats he looked into the camera, his face set hard, and snarled, “Turn that thing off.”

  The screen went blank and then the picture blinked back on again. Beth switched tracks and asked Charlie questions about gardening and plants for a couple of minutes and then made another attempt at eliciting wartime stories. He hesitated, then looked into the camera and slowly shook his head.

  When I looked at Esme, she had a hand spread across her forehead, a pained expression on her face. I reached behind Tony to touch her shoulder. “You okay?”

  She cleared her throat and patted my hand, but she didn’t turn to look at me. “Lots of ghosts from that dark time,” she said, her eyes squeezed shut. “Lots of haunted souls.”

  We all looked up as Olivia came into the room from the screened porch. Her face was red and her clothes were stained with dirt and spotted with perspiration.

  “I thought you were upstairs resting,” Tony said, snatching the headphones off. “Where in the world have you been?” He got up and guided Olivia toward a chair and she collapsed into it.

  “I am so sorry, Esme and Sophreena,” she said, panting as she wiped her forehead on her sweatshirt sleeve. “It was such a beautiful day I decided to rest in the lawn chair out in the yard. And then I was feeling so good I decided I’d try walking down to the lake. I used to do that several times a day and never gave it a thought. I made it down fine and I thought so far, so good. But I had to rest a while before I could make the walk uphill. It was wet and slippery from last night’s rain and I couldn’t seem to keep my feet under me good. I should have taken my phone. I’d have called you to drive your motorcycle down and get me, Tony.”

  “Yeah, wouldn’t Beth just love th
at? Me putting you on the back of my bike? But I could have done the fireman carry,” he said, doing a pantomime.

  He was trying to get a laugh from Olivia and she obliged. When she excused herself to take a shower, Esme and I left Tony to his editing and went to the dining room to lay out the notes to get Olivia started on her heritage scrapbooks.

  I glanced at my watch as we sorted through the selection of background papers Marydale had brought over. “Maybe we’re going to be dining fashionably late,” I said. “It’s after five and Daniel’s not even here to begin the cooking.”

  “I’m told he’s very picky about his ingredients. He likes fresh and local,” Esme said. “Winston said he was going right to the farm to get some things.”

  Olivia came in looking refreshed and quite spiffy in a rust-colored pantsuit. But she was moving stiffly. I had a hunch she had suffered more than a little slipping and sliding in her trek up the hill. We tried to work for a bit but she was distracted and couldn’t concentrate on the questions, which was just as well, since the others started arriving a few minutes later. We’d just settled in the living room when Daniel came rushing in from the kitchen.

  He welcomed us and did a quick survey of the room. “Mom, where’s Beth? I was counting on her to do hostess duty while I cook.”

  “She’s not here yet,” Olivia said. “But I think I’m capable of acting as hostess, especially considering this is my house.” She started to rise, but Daniel put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Of course you’re capable, Mom,” he said. “The point is this is supposed to be a treat for you, too.”