25

“Hello, Kate?” Frances’s mannered voice crackled over a dubious connection on my cell phone. “What can I do for you?”

“Hello, Frances. Carroll and I have been doing some reading at the B&B, and a name came up. I thought it sounded familiar. Didn’t you mention someone with the surname Simmons to me the other day at lunch?”

“Yes, I think I did. It was in connection with the old town feud going back many years in Asheboro’s history. I can’t say as to whether it’s still an active concern, but as recently as my youth, there was property destruction in the mix. Some people were killed, if you look back further, though it appeared to be accidental. But I have my suspicions, based on the parties involved.”

My forehead felt clammy. There was one more thing I needed to know.

“And didn’t you say that name was connected to some family still living in the area today?”

“Why, yes. Your foreman, or what have you—Morgan? It’s his mother’s side, if I’m not mistaken. They’ve never been from Asheboro proper, though. A few towns off, somewhere near Sharpsburg. But this is all ancient history. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, Frances,” I hedged. “I’m sorry to have bothered you—I’ll tell you later. Thanks for your help.” She hung up first, and I stood with the phone still up against my ear, thinking. Could Morgan be a direct descendant of Florence, the Barton family maid—and thus, clandestinely, of Henry Barton? If so, was he aware of this? Another thought nagged at the back of my mind. I returned to Carroll and Josh in the kitchen.

“Carroll, did you ever find anything about Steve’s family history in Asheboro? Everyone seems to know they go way back, but did you find hard evidence to support that?”

She grabbed her laptop and opened it up. “Well, I did some digging, like you asked. And Frances was right; the Abernathy roots in Asheboro go deep. I found independent contractors in carpentry and plumbing going back several generations. And then I saw here…” She clicked through a few tabs, looking for the relevant document. “This guy. Interesting life. William Abernathy Jr. Our former plumber Steve’s great-great-uncle, if I counted right. Sounds like he was something of a roustabout. Served in the Union army, briefly went AWOL right after a battle, somehow avoided court-martial proceedings, came home to Asheboro, lived with his mother and brother while performing odd jobs around town, and then got a job…” Her eyes brightened as she trailed off. She paged back to another tab she had open.

“Wait just a minute. This manifest of workers in Henry’s household. That squiggle I saw a few days ago…” She squinted once again at the image on the screen that had flummoxed us both with its illegibility. “That’s it! It says ‘Bill.’ Bill … Abernathy.” I stood behind her and looked into the screen. She was right.

“Oh no,” I said, my mouth agape.

“Oh yes. Looks like it’s a direct line of Abernathys in Asheboro, from our friend Bill in the staircase down to Steve … in the other staircase. That’s a little creepy. Do you think Steve knew?”

“That his historic forebear was none other than the desiccated body in the wall of his new work site? So he came back to avenge his fallen great-great-whatever? I doubt it. Unless the guy was a genealogy buff like you.”

“Hey, it’s not impossible!” she protested.

“I honestly doubt that Steve knew about Bill in the wall. The way Mary told it, Bill’s death didn’t sound like part of an ongoing argument—more like a direct result of his attempted assault on Florence. And it appears that Henry Barton covered up the death—literally and figuratively. Mary wrote that Henry told anyone who asked about his missing servant that the man had skipped town.”

“And depending on how much they knew of Bill’s character, they might not have had any reason to doubt that story,” Carroll added, finishing my thought. “The guy was a real cad. And when he disappeared, maybe people even thought he had run away with Florence when she left Asheboro around the same time.”

“That’s right—they might have thought her child was Bill’s! That’s convenient—and also kind of awful, considering he’s the one who tried to assault her. But remember how Frances said memories in the country are long? Maybe there was some piece of family lore—half a story, a fragment, a hunch—passed down through the generations, and when Steve took the job at the mansion, he thought he could finally confirm it?”

We both stopped talking, the implications of all this whirring through our minds. Of course, Steve was dead, so we would probably never know what he’d had in mind when he took the job working on Henry Barton’s house. And Morgan had seemed strictly uninterested in the subject of the feud when we’d spoken at the house. But wouldn’t he want to throw me off the scent if it were true?

The heavy revelations of the morning were yielding diminishing returns in my overloaded brain. I suggested to Carroll and Josh that we make a stop at the mansion and stretch our legs on the grounds for a while, and they agreed. We locked up and piled into my car, our minds buzzing with new details.

When we arrived at the Barton property, Carroll and Josh took to the back field, discussing the potential plotting of fruit trees, flowers, and decorative hedges around the gazebo that might be in the house’s future as a public attraction. I was touched that they were so keen to collaborate, as I’d been worried about their bickering over rights to historical sources only a few days ago. I said I’d join them in a few minutes, and let myself in through the front door of the mansion. I had been meaning to open up the library door again for airflow, now that the police had cleared the scene.

I unlocked the room’s door and swung it open. I inhaled the deep, leathery scent of old books and wondered if anyone had ever made a perfume to mimic this enchanting aroma. I remembered that I needed to reshelve the volume Morgan had returned to me after Steve pocketed it. Just then, my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I picked it up, lost in thoughts of what I needed to do to get this house in order.

“Kate.” The gruff voice of Brady Reynolds came through without a formal salutation. “We got a partial print off the button on Steve’s overalls. Ran it through the system, and it was a match to an old petty theft case, ten years ago. I thought you should know, since he’s on your crew. The print belonged to Lars Abernathy.”

“So what? Maybe he folded his brother’s laundry last week?”

“The garment in question had not been recently laundered, and the print was fresh. This may point to the brother’s involvement in Steve’s fatal injury.”

I stared at my reflection in the large mirror set into the library wall: a stunned woman standing stock-still in an antique room. I took the phone from my ear and blinked at it.

“Lars? But … he wasn’t even in town when Steve died. So you think—”

“I can’t say anything conclusive right now. But he’s a person of interest. Have you heard from him?”

“No, I haven’t. Morgan said he spoke with him a few days ago, but they didn’t talk much.” A thunk from down the hall turned my head. “Can I call you back?”

“Of course. And contact me immediately if you hear from Lars Abernathy.”

“I will.” I hung up and stepped from the library into the hall, peering around the handrail of the grand staircase toward the kitchen. I could see the back door, and it was ajar, a crack of sunlight slipping through it like a knife. Another thunk. I drew back from sight just as someone emerged from the kitchen and turned to face the door to the basement steps. I heard a struggle with the door, which didn’t budge—the detective and his crew must’ve locked it after they cleared the scene. A stumbling sound alerted me that whoever this was might not be operating with their full faculties. And then came a pitiful yelp, like the cry of an injured animal. Moving very slowly, I stepped back across the library threshold into the hallway, moving step by step toward the basement door. When I got close enough, I saw the intruder sitting on the floor with his back against the locked door. It was Lars. He appeared to be crying. He didn’t see me immediately, so I backed up a few steps and took out my phone. I didn’t dare make a phone call right now, but I dashed off a text to Brady Reynolds: “Lars at mansion. Get here now.”

A banging sound came from the basement door. Lars was now beating his fists against it, having failed to get it open. Then a clinking sound, as of metal objects. When I approached the door once again, Lars was on his knees, trying to pick the lock with the same kind of pocket tools I had seen Morgan use in the attic some days ago. He wasn’t doing it very well. This time, he saw me.

“Kate. I…” His speech was slow, careful, and a bit slurred. “I had to see, uh … where my brother … where he died.”

“Lars, how did you get in here? You can’t be in here now.”

“I know how to get in.” Was he drunk? His body wavered a bit as he kneeled, still holding the tools and jiggling them in the lock, leaning one shoulder against the door and squinting. “I grew up here … Anybody can get into this place.”

“Lars, I thought you were in the city.”

“Nah. Thas’ just what I told my brother to get him off my back. I don’t even have a girlfriend. I jus’ have to get away from him sometimes … He took my wallet off me, you know. Thinks he’s so funny. I had to walk back from the station an’ get it back from him the other night…” He gave up on the lock-picking tools, slumping forward with his forehead against the heavy wood door.

“I see. I’m so sorry about your brother, Lars.” I glanced again at the back door. No sign of Josh and Carroll, and Reynolds would probably take ten minutes to get here, even at top speed with his sirens on. I’d have to deal with Lars until then. Was he really feeling sentimental about the brother he clearly hadn’t liked, or had he broken into the house today for some other reason? I decided to call his bluff. “Lars, do you want me to open the door for you? I have a key.”

He turned his head slightly in my direction and seemed to size me up for the first time. He acted a lot more like his brother when he was drunk—meaner, sloppier, and potentially hiding something.

“Yeah … okay. You open it.” He stood with considerable effort, coming to rest with his back against the kitchen doorway. He leaned there, staring at me, chewing the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. I didn’t dare turn my back on him, so I made an awkward half circle and stood facing him, in front of the door, as I searched for the right key on my ring. I figured a little chatter might distract him.

“So, Lars, were you and your brother close?”

“I would not say that,” he said, picking out his words carefully and plunking them out like stones between us. “He was older. Had his own friends. Not much room for me … But I wasn’t into his stuff anyway.”

“But you’d been apprenticing under him? Learning plumbing?”

A cloud descended over Lars’s expression. I had narrowed my search down to two keys, and now began trying each in the lock, moving as slowly and evenly as I could so as not to look frantic. Which, for the record, I was.

“He let me learn his trade. He ‘let’ me—he always said that, like it was a big favor. Like I was nobody and he had this great thing going. But when I lost my job in the city last year, I figured … maybe it could be good for me.”

I turned the final key in the lock. Click. Thank heaven. I had one more thing to ask Lars.

“But when you came back to the house on Thursday night, he was mean to you, wasn’t he?”

“He was! Said my ‘girlie’ probably told me not to come, he said she probably dumped me over the phone … Ha. Shows what he knows. Didn’t even have a girlfriend. Stupid.”

“And he was drunk, which probably made him meaner. So when he went too far, you just … gave him a push?”

“He wouldn’t stop shoving me. He said I ruined his chances with Bethany, said I was hitting on her and it made her hate him. That doesn’t even make sense. So I jus’ pushed him to get him off me. But he went … down.”

Lars’s gaze drifted to the basement door as he remembered that moment. I swung the door open with a loud creak. “That sounds awful, Lars. But I completely respect your need for closure. Take your time.” I stepped aside and gestured for him to go ahead. He took a few shambling steps to the doorway, and then stood swaying at the top of the basement stairs, a hand on each side of the frame.

“Hey, how’d you know about that?”

I pointed down the dark stairs. “There’s a light switch at the bottom there, Lars. Can you get it? I’m a little afraid of the dark. I’ll just follow you. You’re braver than I am.” I smiled as girlishly as I could, and Lars’s face melted into a lusty smirk—unnervingly like his big brother’s.

“Sure, yeah.” He seemed to forget his question, and started down the steps, his hand gripping the rail for all it was worth. I watched him long enough to be certain he wasn’t going to take a header down to the basement floor—I wasn’t hoping for another one of those—and then I closed the door silently behind him and locked it with the key still gripped in my shaking fist.

“Hey! Kate? Is there—ow! Where’s the switch?”

I turned my back to the door, took a deep breath, and let it out. But how long did I have until Lars, clumsy as he was right now, remembered there was another exit onto the back lawn?