I was ready to rush right up there; taking the steps two at a time. Chief Gardner, though, preferred to keep Olivia waiting and wondering. She sipped her coffee as she explained herself to me.
“The thing about the phone number of the wireless caller who contacted 911 this morning—it had a 952 area code,” she said. “We both spent enough time investigating crimes in the Twin Cities to know that 952 is attached to the suburbs southwest of Minneapolis. That’s as far as I took it, deciding to wait for the cell phone provider to give us a name and address. Yet it occurred to me while watching the Reddings squabble that one of them might have made the call. Except, Redding’s area code is 320; that excused Carly and Marian. The area code for Mankato where Eden and Alex Redding live—507. Marshall, where Anna Redding teaches, is 507, too. That left Olivia and Big Ben. I bet they live on Lake Minnetonka.”
“Edina, actually.”
“Ah, one suburb too far.”
“You’re a clever girl,” I repeated. “LT would be proud.”
Chief Gardner finished her coffee.
“Think we’ve given Livy enough time to worry herself into an anxiety attack?”
“Oh yeah.”
Only Olivia wasn’t anxious, at least she didn’t appear to be.
We found her in the art gallery leaning against the windowsill and staring more or less at the spot in the clearing behind the castle where the cross had been set afire. She began speaking as we entered the room, not even bothering to look at us. Her voice had a certain melancholy tinge to it as if she had made a decision and wasn’t particularly happy about it.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said. “Or if I should tell you anything. Yes, I called 911 this morning. I had hoped to remain anonymous, not that it matters. It should have occurred to me that you could easily trace the phone number back to me; I don’t know why it hadn’t. Not that that matters, either.”
“You witnessed a crime,” Chief Gardner said. “That’s what matters.”
“I did what was expected of me, too. I reported the crime, which I am not legally obligated to do.” Olivia turned her head to look at Chief Gardner for the first time. “Am I?”
“No.”
“Nor must I voluntarily provide information that I might have about a crime to the authorities. Correct?”
“You understand your rights.”
Olivia turned her head to gaze out the window some more.
“I was pre-law at the University of Minnesota. What do you think, McKenzie? Pretty good for a cheerleader, don’t you think?”
“You didn’t become a lawyer?” I asked.
“No.”
“What happened?”
“Ben happened. Ben’s Beez happened. We won’t talk about that.”
“Ms. Redding, you saw the fire long before anyone else did,” Chief Gardner said.
“Did I?”
“By fifteen minutes or more. I’m very concerned about those fifteen minutes.”
“I wish I could help you, Chief.”
“You called it in at exactly one oh-six A.M.”
“I didn’t know the time.”
“Where were you when you first saw the fire?”
“Here. In this room.”
“Were you alone?” I asked.
Olivia smiled slightly and moved from the window to the love seat that I had used the evening before. She sat down, leaned back against the cushions, and stretched her legs straight out.
“Yes, I was alone,” she said.
“Where was Mr. Redding?” the chief asked.
Olivia closed her eyes and sighed. For a moment, I didn’t think she would answer.
“In our room, sleeping,” she said. “I slipped away without him knowing. Since we seem to be heading in that direction, no, our marriage is not what it could be. He’s cheated on me so many times it’s almost become a running gag.”
“Have you ever cheated on him?” I asked.
“Not at first, but after I realized that he wasn’t going to change no matter how often he promised, yes, I did, every chance I got.”
Olivia’s eyes snapped open and she leaned forward on the love seat.
“You want to know why I was in this room last night?” she asked. “I’ve decided it’s time to put an end to this silly farce, as much fun as it’s been, and make no mistake, McKenzie, Chief, it’s been an enormous amount of fun being married to Big Ben Redding. Especially since I decided, like him, to ignore the conventions of an honorable marriage. The truth is we never should have married. We should have remained roommates instead; business partners; friends with benefits. That’s pretty much how we’ve lived for the past four decades anyway. Only I don’t want to become a casualty of old age; have Ben come to me one day and say he’s trading me for—what? What’s the rule? Divide your age by half and add seven years and … I don’t know.”
I flashed on Cassandra Boeve and the time I saw her and Olivia sharing coffee.
“You could do the same thing,” I said.
“Now there’s a thought, McKenzie. Don’t think it hasn’t crossed my mind, either. Only that’s not why I was in this room last night; that’s not what I was thinking. I was sitting here, in this very spot, and wondering if it was possible after I leave Ben for me to get my hands on this glorious artwork. The Reddings, even Tess; they grew up with all of this hanging on the walls and never once realized its true value, not aesthetically or monetarily. Only I did.”
“Jenness is convinced that you hate this place.”
“No, no, I love it. I don’t care for the City of Redding, but this place—I remember the first time I saw Redding Castle, the first time Ben brought me here. It was our junior year at the U. My family had been so upset that I would blow off Christmas with them to spend it with my boyfriend’s family instead. But my God, the place just took my breath away. It was like walking into Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol without the ghosts, well, except for Carly. When he was drafted by the Bills, Ben and I actually talked about me living here and visiting him in Buffalo during the season. Best-laid plans.”
“Now you’re lobbying to sell it,” I reminded her.
“Community property,” Olivia said. “My share of Ben’s Beez and half of his share of Redding Castle will fund a very comfortable retirement. Besides, after Ben and I split, I don’t think I’ll be welcome here. Anna already wants to drive a stake through my heart.”
“Any particular reason?”
“I broke up the team. She and Ben were pretty tight when they were kids; almost inseparable. You can still see it, sometimes; the connection. But then Big Ben went to the big city and saw all those big-city lights and became a big man on campus—it was just too big for Anna to compete with. When he brought the cheerleader home—that was inexcusable. I was warned, too, by his siblings and a few old friends. Ben had dated the Redding High School prom queen—they held the prom in the castle—and I was told that Anna had done her very, very best to sabotage their relationship, so watch out they told me. What really irked, though, was when Ben and I built Ben’s Beez.”
“Why?”
“Anna wasn’t invited along for the ride. Apparently, it was her idea to start the beehives behind the castle when they were teenagers and when Ben decided to make it his life’s work without her—Ben had planned on calling it Redding Castle Honey; that’s the name we had used in all of our business plans. He wanted to print an image of the castle on our labels; use it for marketing and sales. Anna just flipped out. You’d have thought she took lessons from Carly. She actually threatened to sue us. So, Ben’s Beez Honey.”
“Ms. Redding,” Chief Gardner said.
“Yes, yes, you want to know about last night.”
“You said you were sitting here.”
“Yes, and while I was sitting here, I saw shadows dancing on the wall and red light reflecting off the window glass. My first thought was that the castle was on fire. I got up, looked out the window, and saw the cross burning.”
“Did you see anything else?” the chief asked.
“No.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“No.”
“The sound of a truck engine, perhaps?”
“No. Sorry.”
“What did you do?”
“I watched it burning and wondered ‘what the fuck?’ Excuse my language; I was channeling Carly for a moment. I called 911 and told the operator what I saw.”
“Why didn’t you give your name?”
“You’ll laugh at me.”
“Not even if I thought it was funny,” the chief said.
“I was afraid everyone would blame the messenger. As McKenzie pointed out, I’ve been lobbying hard to sell the castle. If I was the one who pointed out the burning cross, I felt some people, my family, might think that I had put it there.”
“What did you do after you called 911?”
“I went back to our room, slipped into bed, and waited for the sirens. When they arrived, I acted as if I was as surprised to hear them as Ben.”
“Now you’re using the burning cross to bolster your argument to sell the castle,” I said.
“Makes me look bad, doesn’t it? But something else I learned in pre-law—according to the Supreme Court, it’s not illegal to burn a cross unless it’s carried out with the intent to intimidate an individual or group.”
“Ms. Redding, did you burn that cross?” the chief asked.
“No, I did not. There are some lines even I won’t—step over.”
“Do you know who burned that cross?”
“No, I do not.”
“While burning a cross might not be a crime, under Minnesota law, lying to police is considered obstruction of the judicial process, which means you’ll face an obstruction of justice charge.”
“A misdemeanor offense punishable by up to ninety days in jail and fines up to one thousand dollars. I’ll take my chances.”
We left Olivia Redding sitting on the love seat in the art gallery. A few minutes later, the chief and I were leaning against the fence at the top of the bank overlooking Lake Anpetuwi. I pointed in the general direction of the compound occupied by the Sons of Europa.
“What good reason do I have for going over there?” the chief asked.
“You have a witness who places Heimdall at the scene.”
“A witness whose testimony could very well be self-serving.”
“Welfare check. You knock on the door and inform the Sons that you’re concerned because they’ve been accused of setting fire to a wooden cross at Redding Castle.”
“What I’m most concerned about is that I’ll be accused of allowing my personal beliefs to color my professional judgment. Yes, that was a pun.”
“I hadn’t noticed.”
The chief’s cell phone rang. She answered it.
“This is Chief Gardner.”
The volume was high enough that I could hear Officer Holzt speaking.
“Chief, Phillip Holzt here. I have a couple of things for you, some that you’ll like and some that you won’t.”
“What things?”
“I went over to Home Depot. They don’t sell anything like the wooden beams that the cross was made of. But Bickner’s Lumberyard does. It fact, Bickner himself told me it was a big seller for them; a lot of the area farmers who have livestock or just want to enclose their property use the fencing and some people with big yards do, too. The thing that you’re not going to like—news about the cross burning is all over town. Bickner had heard about it before I got there. When I asked about wooden beams, he put two and two together and got twenty-two. He walked me right over to an area in his yard where they store that stuff and I found the exact same beams that the cross was made from. Bickner also went out of his way to tell me that he sold two bundles of—it’s called Western Red Cedar, by the way—he sold two bundles to the Redding Castle five years ago. He also said—Chief, he said he sold a quarter bundle of the exact same wood to Conrad Fredgaard last spring right after COVID hit.”
“Is he sure?” the chief asked.
“He’s sure. Bickner said he’d be happy to dig out copies of the receipts for us if we want.”
“Thank him for me. And Phillip, ask him to produce the receipts not just for Fredgaard, but also for the castle and all of his other customers.”
“I already have him working on it. According to Bickner, though, we’re talking at least a couple of dozen people in the past two years alone.”
“Phillip, you’re doing a great job.”
“I’ll get the receipts.”
“Thank you, Phillip.”
The chief deactivated her phone and put it in her pocket.
“Who’s Conrad Fredgaard?” I asked.
“He’s the ‘lawspeaker’ for the Sons of Europa.”
“Lawspeaker—does that mean what I think it does?”
“I’ll drive.”
It took us ten minutes by car to reach the compound owned by the Sons of Europa; Madison Zumwalt probably would have reached it in half that time running through the forest. We parked on the edge of a paved county road named Lake Anpetuwi Boulevard that circled the lake. The boulevard seemed to work as a dividing line. There were plenty of small and medium-sized homes on the side of the road that hugged the forest yet none of them were nearly as large or palatial as those on the side that hugged the shoreline.
We walked to the entrance of the Sons’ driveway. It was blocked both by a long wooden gate that swung inward and a man dressed in camo and cradling an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle. There was a sign fixed to the gate. It read TYR HAUS.
“Halt,” the sentry said. “Who goes there?”
“Are you kidding me?” I asked.
The chief flashed me a look that was a combination of surprise and annoyance.
“I’ll be good,” I told her.
“Good morning,” she told the sentry. “City of Redding Chief of Police Deidre Gardner to see the lawspeaker.”
“He’s been expecting you.” The sentry leaned on the gate and gave it a shake as if he wanted to make sure it was latched. “He said you’re supposed to wait here.”
The chief nodded.
The sentry turned and marched down the driveway. It was long and curved; I couldn’t see the house or the lake from where we were standing. Several times as he walked, the guard threw a glance at us from over his shoulder. I waved at him.
“Stop it,” the chief said.
“This so-called lawspeaker is fucking with you.”
“Did you think he wouldn’t?”
“Have you noticed the wooden fence along the property?”
“I’ve noticed.”
Conrad Fredgaard kept us waiting for a good ten minutes. When he finally did appear, he was accompanied by the sentry. Unlike the sentry, though, Fredgaard was wearing jeans, a button-down dress shirt, and a black sports jacket. He had dark hair and dark eyes and if you had told me he was a descendant of ancient Romans instead of Vikings, I would have believed you.
Fredgaard strolled up to the gate. The sentry halted several steps behind him and assumed a parade rest position, his left foot twelve inches to the left of his right foot, his weight equally distributed on both feet, his right hand holding the rifle, the butt of the rifle touching the ground with the muzzle inclined forward and his left hand behind his back.
That’s what I like to see in my church, my inner voice said. Paramilitary training.
Behind them, far down the driveway, I could see Heimdall peeking around the curve like a child wondering what it is that he wasn’t supposed to see.
I bet he was told to stay out of sight.
“Chief Gardner.” Fredgaard spoke with the practiced confidence of someone who worked in public relations. “I expected to be confronted by you long before now.”
“Oh?”
Fredgaard held up his cell phone. There was an image on the screen, only it was too far away for either Chief Gardner or I to clearly see.
“The Redding Weekly Bulletin is accusing us of a despicable act. Should I read the headline and subhead? ‘Burning cross found in backyard of Redding Castle. Redding heir blames the Sons of Europa.’”
“I am sorry about that,” the chief said.
Fredgaard studied her face for a moment.
“I believe you are,” he said.
“I’m sure that the article doesn’t say that the City of Redding Police Department is holding you responsible.”
“It says your investigation is ongoing.”
“I would like to speak to the member of your church that the Redding heir claims she saw at the castle last night.”
“I don’t know who that would be.”
Nice try, Chief.
I pointed at Heimdall, who was still standing at a distance and watching us while pretending not to. Fredgaard’s gaze followed my finger. Anger flashed across his face when he saw Heimdall, yet only for a moment. He glanced at me, at the chief, and back at Heimdall. He was one of those guys you could actually see thinking. He waved Heimdall forward. Heimdall was clearly reluctant to join us and stopped next to the sentry. I noticed a bandage on his left hand.
“Good afternoon,” the chief said.
Heimdall didn’t reply.
“You must forgive Brother Marcus,” Fredgaard said. “He is observing a period of silence and is not allowed to speak.”
“That’s inconvenient.”
“I can see how you might think so.”
“How long is this period of silence to last?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Uh-huh. As the news article claims, I have a witness who places him at Redding Castle at approximately one twenty this morning.”
“I have eight witnesses who will testify that he was here at one twenty this morning.”
“Including yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Brother Marcus,” the chief said. “I’m afraid I don’t know your last name.”
Fredgaard pressed his index finger against his lips and said, “Vow of silence, remember? His name is Marcus Kohn, only he doesn’t need to tell you that, does he?”
“Not even if he’s suspected of a crime?”
“Brother Marcus is not legally required to answer your questions. Even if you arrest him, he is not legally required to answer your questions whether he has an attorney present or not.”
“Hey, Marc,” I said. I pointed at his left hand. “I notice you’re wearing a bandage. You didn’t have that when I saw you last night around seven.”
Heimdall—yes, I knew his name, yet I always thought of him as Heimdall—glanced at his hand like it was the first time he saw it. So did Fredgaard.
“Did you burn yourself?” I asked.
Heimdall didn’t answer.
“Mr. Kohn”—Chief Gardner emphasized the “mister”—“you do have the right to remain silent. I have rights and responsibilities as well. Must I exercise them?”
Again, a momentary flash of anger colored Fredgaard’s face and yet again, he quickly brought it under control.
“Show them,” he said,
Heimdall seemed confused.
“Show them your hand,” Fredgaard said.
Heimdall hesitated for a long moment before stepping forward. He slowly unwrapped the gauze bandage around his left hand, and when finished, held his hand up for us to see. There was a single straight cut that ran the length of his palm.
“Brother Marcus took part in a blotting ceremony last night,” Haugen said. “His vow of silence is an integral part of it.”
“Blotting ceremony?” the chief asked.
“Blot is the term for a ritual blood sacrifice to our sacred gods of Asgard. Adherents, like Brother Marcus, will cut themselves and allow their blood to drip into the land as a gift to them or to strengthen their connection to them or to seek divine inspiration from them. In many ways, it is similar to Roman Catholics who fast or deprive themselves of some small pleasure or indulgence during their time of Lent.”
Fredgaard seemed happy with his explanation because he was smiling when he finished. Chief Gardner was not smiling, however.
“A witness identifying your man isn’t the only reason I’m here,” she said.
“No?”
The chief walked over to the edge of the driveway where the gate met the rustic-looking split-rail fence—an exact duplicate of the one found on the bank at Redding Castle.
“Is this supposed to keep people out?” she asked.
“It merely marks our property,” Fredgaard said. “There are ordinances dictating the kind of fences that can be constructed on the lake.”
“No ten-foot-tall cyclones topped with barbed wire, huh?”
“We are a church—”
“With armed guards.”
“Chief Gardner—”
“The wooden beams used to make this fence are identical to the ones used to make the cross that was burned at Redding Castle.”
Instead of anger, the expression that flashed oh so briefly across Fredgaard’s face was one of surprise. Once again, he recovered quickly.
“The wood was purchased at Bickner’s Lumberyard,” he said.
“We know.”
“Bickner has sold the same wood to many other customers.”
“We know.”
“Will you be interrogating them as well, Chief Gardner?”
“Yes.”
Fredgaard had nothing to say to that. Behind him a man, half walking, half jogging, approached with a phone in his hand.
“I’d like your permission to come inside your fence and look around,” the chief said.
“Do you have a search warrant?” Fredgaard asked.
“No, I do not.”
“You’re not likely to get one, either, are you, Chief Gardner? Not without probable cause.”
The man said, “Lawspeaker,” yet Fredgaard shrugged him off.
The chief leaned against the fence and crossed her arms over her chest. She gestured at Heimdall with her chin.
“You don’t think I have probable cause?” She gave Fredgaard a broad smile; a smile bordering on laughter. “I was with the Minneapolis Police Department for many years before I came here, most of them in homicide; that’s no secret. What I always found amusing during my time there was the number of suspects who quoted the law at me; who thought the law was like a pair of handcuffs or something that they could somehow use to keep me from learning the truth. McKenzie, you knew me back then. How often did that work?”
“Well, there was that one guy—no, no, now that I think of it, he’s doing life at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Oak Park Heights.”
“Do you think you can intimidate me?” Fredgaard asked.
“Lawspeaker,” the man said again.
Fredgaard spun toward him.
“What?”
The man showed him what was on the screen of his phone. Fredgaard read it and wrapped his arm around the man’s shoulder.
“I apologize for shouting,” he said.
“’S okay,” the man said before retreating back down the driveway. Heimdall glanced around, didn’t see anyone holding up a stop sign, and decided to follow him. The sentry remained at parade rest.
“It seems that there is to be an emergency meeting of the Redding City Council this evening,” Fredgaard said. “We shall answer your charges…”
“I haven’t charged anyone with anything yet,” the chief said.
That caused Fredgaard to pause as if he was replaying the entire conversation in his head.
“That’s true,” he said.
“At the same time, I’ve noticed that you haven’t denied responsibility for the burning cross.”
“We will make our thoughts known at the city council meeting tonight.”
“There will be protestors,” the chief said.
“We do not fear them.”
Chief Gardner gestured at the AR-15 the sentry was holding.
“My concern is that they will fear you,” she said.
“We shall arrive unarmed to the lion’s den.” Fredgaard smiled his PR smile as if he was pleased by his reference to Daniel. “And we shall be judged blameless.”
The chief bowed her head at him.
“Lawspeaker,” she said.
Fredgaard smiled some more and retreated down the driveway back toward Tyr Haus.
The parking lot was full when we returned to Redding Castle and the long driveway leading to it was lined with cars. Many of the owners of the vehicles were gathered near General Oglesby Cabin; Eden Redding stood in their midst. Others, however, were lined up outside the front entrance to the castle.
Chief Gardner halted her SUV in the center of the lot.
“I need to get back to the house,” she said.
I reached for the door handle.
“Wait,” she said.
I waited.
“What do you think?”
“Are you asking for my expert opinion, Dee?
“I am.”
“Thank you. I think burning a cross in the Reddings’ backyard is an astonishingly counterproductive thing for the Sons of Europa to do. It can only galvanize the town against them.” I gestured at the crowds. “Which apparently, it has. You said yourself, the Sons is still a small organization; only a few hundred supporters scattered over a dozen states. One of the reasons they want the church on the lake it to help attract followers; don’t you think? A pretty, tax-free setting where like-minded racists can meet and shake hands and hug each other in solidarity. Once they build a significant membership, God knows what they’ll get up to. For now, though, it’s all about ingratiating themselves with the community; it’s all about making friends.”
“Are you saying that you don’t think the Sons did this?”
“I’m saying it would be stupid of them if they had.”
“Both you and I have seen stupid before,” the chief said.
“Yes, we have.”
“Which raises a simple question—if the Sons didn’t do this, who did?”
At that moment, the crowd surrounding the General Oglesby Cabin began cheering. We could easily hear them inside the SUV.
“I keep asking myself, What would Jessica Fletcher do?” I said.
“Probably throw it to a commercial break. Listen, McKenzie, I need a pair of eyes at the meeting tonight; someone to surveil the crowd. I probably won’t get much chance to do it myself. My experience, the people who commit hate crimes take great pride in their work. They might not want to go to jail, but at the same time they want you to know what they did and why they did it. Take those idiot insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol in DC. They posted their crimes on Facebook for God’s sake, on Instagram. So, watch carefully and hope our suspect—whoever that is—tells us everything we need to know.”
Anna Redding struck me as a woman who never smiled unless she was greatly pleased. I found her sitting at a patio table sharing a glass of wine with Jenness Crawford and Nina. She was smiling like she had just won the lottery. I heard her speaking as I approached.
“Enjoy the moment,” she said. “You must, you simply must. At the same time, I caution you not to take too much comfort in it. I am reminded of what occurred in England after that nation broke away from the European Union. A cheesemaker of whom I am familiar lost nearly 350,000 pounds in export sales in a single calendar year. He shared his sad tale on Twitter and that prompted a frenzy of nationalistic cheese-buying by his fellow countrymen. His in-country sales increased over nine hundred percent. Except shouting ‘Buy British, buy British’ proved to be an unsustainable business model. It bought him time to determine how to best regain his European customers post-Brexit, yet that was all. Time. Now you have time. You must use it wisely.”
“I understand,” Jenness said.
“Hi,” I said.
I rested my hand on Nina’s shoulder. Her hand came up to cover mine.
“McKenzie, there you are,” she said.
“Ah, yes, McKenzie.” Anna continued to smile. “Have you and Chief Gardner solved the riddle of the burning cross?”
She makes it sound like a Hardy Boys novel, my inner voice said. Or Nancy Drew.
“The investigation is ongoing,” I said.
“Pity.”
“You’re not acting like it’s a pity.”
“I have a fondness for the law of unintended consequences.”
“We’ve booked every table in the dining room for at least the next three weeks,” Jenness said. “We’ve booked every room and cabin for every weekend until Halloween; I have only a few Monday, Tuesday, and a couple of Wednesday rooms open. All of this in just the past few hours. People have heard what happened and they’re rallying around us. It’s fantastic. My takeout orders—I can’t even keep up.”
“Jenness was able to contact all of the employees that she was forced to lay off and asked them to come back at least part-time,” Nina said. “She might need to hire more.”
“Aunt Anna says this is not sustainable,” Jenness said. “She’s probably right; she usually is. If we can maintain this volume of business through November into the Christmas season, though—Christmas has always been a big holiday for us—we’ll not only survive the winter doldrums, we’ll be in a position when spring arrives to duplicate the revenues the castle enjoyed pre-COVID. We can return Redding Castle to the heights it enjoyed when my grandmother was young. With the suggestions Nina made—concerts at the castle—there’s no reason why we can’t do even better than that.”
“What about—” I brought my hand up like I was stopping traffic when, in fact, I was merely stopping myself. “That’s great news. I’m so happy that something good has come of all of this.”
Anna chuckled; it didn’t sound as if she did it a lot.
“McKenzie is trying not to be a downer,” she said. “Isn’t that what the kids say? Downer?”
Maybe when you were a kid.
“He’s concerned about the vote my brothers and sisters and I are expected to take tomorrow to determine the future of the castle,” Anna said. “I, for one, am confident of a positive outcome. Jenny, you will be stating your case after the Sibs have heard the developer’s presentation and no doubt they will be excited by the prospect of unexpected riches. They will also be made aware of the enormous amount of work that lies before them. I shall see to it. We are, after all, selling a great house that needs to be emptied. A liquidation sale of its contents will be required and that’s only the beginning. You, on the other hand, are asking for nothing from them save patience. At the risk of repeating myself, concentrate solely on the potential profitability of the enterprise for I do not believe my brothers and sisters will be swayed by family history. Do not show weakness or concern. Leave it to me to remind them that if the gods of commerce should conspire against you, Redding Castle and Lake Anpetuwi will retain their value. They are not going anywhere.”
“Thank you,” Jenness said.
Anna reached across the table and squeezed her niece’s hand.
“Now I shall get out of your way,” she said. “Back to work, you two. Make me proud.”
All three women rose as one. Anna went one way and Jenness went another. Nina said, “I’ll be there in a second.”
When we were alone, she wrapped her arm around mine.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re smiling too hard. You only do that when something’s bothering you and you don’t want people to know.”
“I’m happy that things seem to be turning around for Jenness and the castle. I will be genuinely ecstatic if the vote goes her way tomorrow. I’m just trying to wrap my head around Anna’s remark concerning the law of unintended consequences.”
“What about it?”
“What makes her think they were unintended?”