twenty-nine

“So has she been dug up or never buried?” Jonathan asked Francine.

A male voice said, “You know the answer to that.”

They both turned. Zed stood there with a shovel.

The sight of the him clad in well-worn jeans and a heavy flannel shirt grasping a spade in one hand made Francine think of an unpredictable horror movie villain, even though he was now neatly groomed. She was glad Jonathan was with her. “Where were you hiding?”

“In the trees. Your car is quiet when it’s running on battery power, but the road is bumpy enough I heard the chassis bouncing as you came in.”

Francine felt Jonathan shift his stance to one of preparedness in case they were attacked. She had no idea if he was carrying his gun, but she assumed so.

Zed did not make any threatening moves. In fact, he acted jovial. “Well, congratulations, Francine! You figured it out. You found the key, you know the secret. You are our worthy successor.”

“I’m not sure I understand it all, but let me try. You are my great-grandfather, the carriage driver who inspired such passion in my great-grandmother that you had a tryst with her.”

“Tryst. An old-fashioned word. But then, we are old-fashioned people. Please continue.”

“The woman who died, Belinda Flowers, was my great-
grandmother. Somehow, you discovered this land and the geyser on it. The water has … restorative powers. You used them to develop remedies and re-created yourself as Doc Wheat.”

“And your great-grandmother?”

Francine had read enough of her grandmother’s diary to know the answer. “She never stopped loving you.”

Zed approached the gravesite. He seemed anxious to finish shoveling the remaining dirt on the grave. “Again, you are correct. Our love affair continued during the arranged marriage.”

“More than that. When he died, she came to live with you. And my grandmother knew the truth.”

“She was one of us. We started her on the waters too young, though. We were still in the experimental phase then. We didn’t know how it would affect aging. She seemed eternally young.”

“Her death was a blow to my great-grandmother.”

“The water can restore, but it can’t prevent death. Accidents, fires, diseases that act too quickly—they all proved to be too much.”

“Is that why you gave up your Doc Wheat identity?”

He shook his head. “That came long before her death. Authorities were starting to look too closely. To protect the secret, we re-invented ourselves again.”

“As Zedediah Matthew.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Did my mother know?”

“We had planned to tell her when she got older. We had decided amongst ourselves that she would need to reach a certain age before we introduced the water, so she wouldn’t look so young, like your grandmother had. Sadly, she never reach the age at which we could tell her. So your grandmother had died, and then your mother, and Belinda became depressed. And then I discovered one other disease that we couldn’t fix. Alzheimer’s.”

“That’s how William and Dolly found out who Belinda was, didn’t they? When she came to live in the nursing home, she told stories that made her of an age that seemed impossible, but because of the family connection, they guessed.”

Zed simply looked at her. She didn’t think he would confirm or deny anything else, but she pursued the line of questioning.

“Who killed William?”

“I’m surprised you have to ask that question. The police have established who did it.”

“But Dolly had no reason to inject poison into his saline solution, not really. Not unless … she thought it would cure him.” She knew she was only guessing, that there was no way to prove the conclusions she was reaching. “You set her up.”

His stance became rigid and tense.

“She and William were getting too close, weren’t they? In fact, they had already discovered the water, the source of your remedies.”

“It started off innocent enough. William was wrapped up in the whole Doc Wheat legend for his historical project. I allowed him to learn a little too much. Then he found where I hid my collection of water from the geyser.”

“He stole a jar of it, didn’t he? A jar you let him steal. It had the poison in it. Charlotte and I found it in the trunk of the Lucerne.”

Zed threw a shovelful of dirt on the grave, looking like he didn’t want to answer Francine. She waited him out.

“I had been watching for him since I first discovered the missing jar,” Zed explained. “I wanted to catch him in the act. I’d moved the jars into the greenhouse and locked the greenhouse and the cabinet. But he’d done something I hadn’t anticipated. He discovered the source of the water, and he’d gone straight to it.”

“That explains why he only had a vial of it.”

“It takes a long time to collect a pint.”

“If you weren’t expecting him, how did you know he was there?”

“I was headed into town when I saw Dolly’s car go by me. I was surprised that she would be traveling out this way and so early in the day, so I turned around and went back. I found the car easily, but after casing the greenhouse, I determined he wasn’t there. I was horrified by the thought that he’d found the grotto, but he had. I took my rifle and tracked him through the cornfield headed to the Roseville Bridge.”

“But that still doesn’t explain how you ‘know’ Dolly committed both acts of arson.”

Zed smoothed out the dirt on the grave. “Long memories in Parke County. Many years before she married William, Dolly was shacked up with someone infamous. The man arrested for burning down the Jeffries Ford Bridge. And he always claimed he was innocent.”

Francine blinked. So Dolly really was an arsonist, and she’d done it again to get revenge on Zed. Revenge for tricking her into poisoning her husband. “I’m still sorry for what happened to William. Aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “Not my descendant. Although he was seeking to prove he was a relation with his version of our family history. If he’d been successful, he would have inherited this place, and not you.”

So heartless. “But he’s still my cousin!”

“But not a worthy successor. I never believed he could be trusted to make the right decisions once he knew the truth.”

Francine had a sudden flash of insight. “Dolly didn’t kill Belinda. You did.”

Zed choked back a cry. “Belinda had fallen into a vegetative state. She wasn’t there anymore. If the waters hadn’t extended her life, she would have died by then. I decided I loved her too much to let her live like that.”

“You’re going to let Dolly take the fall for those murders? She never meant to kill anyone!”

“Dolly burned me out of my house and took down the monument to the love Belinda … Victoria … and I shared for nine decades. The arson will be much harder to prove. So let her be put away for something. You are my heir.”

Francine looked at Zed’s face and saw only grief there now. “What about you?”

“I’m going away, far from this place. I’m leaving the water behind and I’ll age again. When I die, I die. I suspect it won’t be long.”

“What if Dolly talks about it?”

He smiled sadly. “She would have to admit to her wrongdoing in order to make the case. And then, who would believe her about the water?”

“What am I supposed to do with it? If this is all true, it’s like winning the lottery. It is both a blessing and a curse.”

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “But it’s yours now. You will have to decide which you want it to be.”

The wind picked up. Leaves that had fallen to the forest floor stirred up around them. “Let’s go,” Jonathan said. “He should be allowed some last moments here alone.”

“You’re a good man, Jonathan,” Zed said. “I trust you to support Francine, whatever she decides.”

Jonathan gave no reply. When they turned to walk back to the car, Francine whispered, “You’re not calling the sheriff’s department, are you?”

“By the time they got here, he would be gone. I don’t like that Dolly will be convicted of something she was duped into doing, but let’s wait and see how the trial plays out. I think, in the end, it will be easier to allow the greater sense of justice play out.”

“Meaning let God take care of it?”

“Yes.”

They got in the car.

“I don’t know what I’m going to tell Charlotte about this,” Francine said several minutes later.

“A lie,” Jonathan said, and then laughed. “Or tell her a truth that makes sense to tell her. She’s a pretty good detective. It will take something good to keep her off the case.”

Francine and Jonathan stopped at the Rock Run Café for dinner. There was a crowd, but the owner recognized them and set up a table in one of the back rooms for them. “We don’t usually use this room,” he said, “but I can tell the last thing you want is attention. I’ll serve you myself back here.”

He set candles on the table and lit them. The soft glow of the candlelight seemed magical, like the only thing that existed was what they could see by its light, and that was a very small world. Light jazz played in the background. The owner brought table settings, two menus, and a bottle of brand-name sparkling water. He presented it to them as though it were a fine wine. “We don’t serve alcohol so this is the best we can do. But it’s on the house.”

He poured them each a glass and left, promising to come back in a while and take their orders.

Jonathan held up his glass of fizzy water. “Here’s to your good fortune.”

“Our good fortune,” she replied, clinking his glass with hers, “if it’s to be believed.”

“It’s an amazing story.”

Francine swallowed a sip of the water and felt the bubbles tickle the back of her throat. In spite of her tiredness, the surreal story she was contemplating as truth, and the knowledge that she and the Summer Ridge Bridge Club would be back in the spotlight tomorrow at the press conference, she smiled. “A bit ironic, isn’t it? To be sitting here in the restaurant where we started down the path to answer the riddle of what happened to William, to have the journey turn out to be nothing like what we’d imagined, and now to be sipping a glorified version of spring water, which, let’s be real, is the answer to the riddle.”

He tipped his glass toward her, nodded, and took his own swallow of the water. “You’re not only a good detective, you also have a bit of the muse in you.” He gave her a crooked smile.

She eyed him curiously. “You say that like you have thought of a solution.”

“Not me. You have.” He picked up the bottle of water, turned it around so the label faced her, and handed it to her.

“It says Pellegrino.”

“Yes, but it’s much more than that. Read the label.”

“It’s bottled at a source in Italy.”

“What if it were bottled right here in Parke County? What if William’s history of the county were modified to make that suggestion?”

Francine thought a moment. “Jonathan, you’re a genius. The geyser is the source of the water Doc Wheat used in his remedies. William and Dolly wanted to bottle the water for their own purposes. A craft water with ‘restorative’ powers, at least that’s the ages-old myth. Zed wouldn’t permit it. No more, no less. It sounds like a snake oil proposition, doesn’t it? Best of all, no one will believe there’s any truth in it.”

“Not even Charlotte,” he said.

They clinked glasses again. Francine began to giggle, which made her feel silly and young and free of the worries of the world. Jonathan began to chuckle with her, and when the owner came back to take their orders, he found them dancing to a jazz version of “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing.”

Francine, Jonathan, and the Summer Ridge Bridge Club put on their best faces for the press conference the next morning. Joy presided over the announcement of the pinup calendar and how the proceeds would go to rebuild the Roseville Bridge. Marcy prowled in the background, passing out sample copies they’d couriered the previous night from Indianapolis. In the end, the tragic story of William’s death, Dolly’s rampage of arson and poisoning, along with the semi-nude photos of the women baring their all, reached around the world.

Five weeks later, Francine and Charlotte sat in the kitchen at Francine’s house. The Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays were Francine’s favorites, and she always decorated for them. With Thanksgiving upon them, she had placed pumpkins and gourds in strategic nooks throughout the house, multicolored ears of dried corn lay on tables and hung from hooks in the kitchen, and on this particular day, the promising smell of apple pie cooling on a counter filled in the air.

“How are sales?” Francine asked. She poured Charlotte a cup of tea.

“You ask me that every week when you have me over for tea.”

“I don’t keep track of where we’re at, but if I remember right, we’re closing in the amount needed. I know you monitor it closely.”

“Marcy is preparing to release the information to the press. Net proceeds from the calendar total half a million dollars, and the crowd-funding site Marcy set up has raised an astounding $2.3 million. We’ve passed the goal.”

“So you’ve accomplished your Sixty List item sixty-nine, Be a Sexy Calendar Girl, and fifteen, Be More Generous and Philanthropic.”

Charlotte started to say something, and then got choked up. Francine reached over and rubbed the back of her arm in reassurance. “Is everything all right?”

“It’s just that we are so blessed, Francine.”

“We truly are.”

“I never thought that at this age I’d have so many opportunities. I remember when my husband died, I thought life might be over. I still miss him, but life goes on. Thanks to your friendship, and that of Alice, Mary Ruth, Joy, and all the people who’ve come into our lives, I see so many good things ahead.”

“Who would have thought our Sixty Lists would have produced such a sensation?”

“It’s God working in all things to bring about good. I’m sorry that the Roseville Bridge burned and that your cousin died. In some ways I almost feel responsible since we wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for the pinup calendar on my bucket list.”

“But in the end you’ve touched the lives of a lot of people, Charlotte. And Mary Ruth’s successes at Food Network and Joy’s on Good Morning America have inspired a lot of seniors to try new things. Alice managed to check the séance off her list, but more importantly she’s realized she needs and wants Larry back in her life. It’s like a miracle.”

“Not like, it is a miracle. You didn’t come out too bad, either. You inherited the ranch from Zed. I just hope you don’t have the problem he had with people searching for treasure on the property.”

“It was Marcy’s doing, but going public with the story about William’s idea for merchandising the spring has put it in the category of Pluto Water, the mineral waters they sell down in French Lick. There’s only so much room for those kinds of novelties, and Jonathan and I won’t participate in them. I think the matter’s settled. But we are going to build a new cabin there. It’ll be a nice retreat for us. For all of us.”

Charlotte took a sip of tea. “What kind of tea you have made this week?”

“I’m still experimenting with some herbals I found in Zed’s greenhouse. How do you like it?”

“It’s nice. Has a bit of metallic taste, though.”

“Is it bad?”

“No, but don’t look so surprised. It’s the same taste I’ve mentioned every week.”

Francine demurred. “Let’s change subjects. How’s your knee doing? You seem to be walking better.”

“It’s the funniest thing. I don’t have nearly the pain I used to. My physical therapist is excited. The new exercises he found to strengthen the muscles around the artificial knee seem to be working.”

“Then let’s celebrate with a piece of pie. Just a sliver. I’m sure it’s cool enough to serve.”

And that’s just what they did.

the end