TWENTY-FOUR

The hospital had a slightly stuffy, antiseptic smell as I made my way to Melanie’s room. The guard was gone, now that the danger was passed. Melanie was propped up on pillows with the head of the bed elevated. Her lips were pursed as she held a small mirror with one hand and applied a pale pink lipstick with another. Her blond tresses were artfully disheveled, and she wore a luxurious satin bed jacket. Caitlyn stood in one corner of the room, deep in conversation with a bearded man holding a clipboard and wearing a wireless headset. On a small folding table sat a huge video camera.

“Hey, Melanie. How are you feeling? What’s going on?” But I had a feeling I knew.

Melanie smiled. “Georgie, meet Louis. He’s the assistant director of The Desperate and the Defiant.”

I nodded in Louis’s direction.

“Nice to meet you,” he said.

“Let me guess. The show is writing in a hospital storyline for you.”

The satisfied expression on her face confirmed my guess. “Not just a hospital storyline—a gunshot. I’ve gotten myself mixed up with the mob trying to protect one of my daughters, and I was shot and left for dead. Until a very handsome doctor came along and rescued me, taking me to his mountain cabin and nursing me back to health until he could get me to a proper hospital. After an avalanche closed off all the roads, of course. But we’ll film all that later.”

She was clearly in her element. Spleenless and stitched up, she was still an actress. I had to admit that, even though it was one of the things that had kept her away from me for so many years, she still had her passion for her work. A thing I could understand, given my love for the Bonaparte House. Although it wouldn’t have hurt her to pick up the phone once every decade or so. Passion and family were not mutually exclusive.

“Has the doctor been in today? When are you getting out?”

She shifted in bed, wincing only slightly. “Tomorrow, as long as I don’t have to travel. And as long as we’re done filming, of course. The show is making a nice donation to the Hospital Auxiliary Fund in exchange for letting us use this as a set.”

I was glad to hear it. Our tiny hospital needed all the help it could get. “You could come home with me. I don’t have any formal nurse’s training but I can change the sheets and keep you comfortable and well fed.” As soon as I said it, I knew it would never work. There was no bedroom on the first floor, and she’d never be able to handle the stairs. Still I was glad I made the offer.

Melanie stared. “You’d do that for me? After . . . everything?” Her voice was soft and pitched up in a question, as if she couldn’t quite believe her ears.

I patted her hand, the one without the IV attached. “You’re not completely forgiven.” I smiled. “But of course you can stay with me if you want.” The restaurant was closed this week. It wouldn’t be hard to move tables and set up a bed in one of the dining rooms. Well, it would be a pain in the behind. But it was doable.

Her eyes misted over. “Thank you,” she whispered. “But Caitlyn has already made arrangements for us to stay on at the Spa. And once the producer here sees the place, I feel pretty confident he’ll want to film there. Win-win for everybody. I get to recover in luxury, the show gets some spectacular castle footage, and your friend Liza gets paid.”

I felt a swell of relief pierced by a teeny-tiny pang of disappointment. As angry as I still was, it would have been nice to spend some time with her.

“Why don’t you come and spend a few days at the Spa with me?”

“I’d like that, Melanie.” And it was true.

Caitlyn, who’d been busy with the producer, approached us. She didn’t seem to be any worse for having been tied up, gagged, and having a knife held to her throat. “Louis says we’re almost ready. There’s a local actor coming in this afternoon to play the staff doctor, and a couple of the nurses here are going to play themselves.”

Melanie nodded, her self-satisfied smile returned to its rightful place on her lips. “Georgie, are you free tomorrow morning?”

I nodded.

“Then would you go out to the farm with Caitlyn? I’ve decided not to sell to Rainbow Acres just yet. But I’ve agreed to lease it to them for the yoga retreat and I’d like you and Caitlyn to work out the details with Hank before we take it to that law firm in town to draw up the agreement. You can have the rent,” she offered, her voice tentative.

Tempting. It would be nice to fatten up my nest egg, getting me that much closer to my dream of buying out Sophie from the Bonaparte House when she was ready to sell. But it didn’t seem right. I wanted to own that dream and earn the money myself, not just have it handed to me.

I shook my head. “I have a better idea. Why don’t we donate the rent to various groups and charities in the Bay and the surrounding area? There are plenty of places where that money could do some real good, like the volunteer fire department and the school PTO.”

Melanie drummed the fingers of her free hand on the bed rail. “Brilliant,” she finally said. “Another win-win. I’m sure we can get some nice publicity out of it.”

I turned to Caitlyn. “Pick me up at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, and I assume you’ll call Hank to meet us there?”

“Yes,” she said, punching something into her ever-present phone.

“You’re not afraid to go back to the farm, are you?”

She looked up. “What? No. Not with Channing . . . gone.” Her expression was unreadable. I wondered if she really had liked him and that’s why she’d been following him around. Or was it just her mysterious “research”?

Which reminded me. “Melanie, I realize we can’t discuss this here.” I cut my eyes to Louis, who was talking into his cell phone and paying no attention to us. “But I want you to give permission for Caitlyn to tell me tomorrow all about why you’re really here and what she’s been working on. You owe me that much.”

Melanie looked thoughtful. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I didn’t want to talk about this until we had it all settled. If it can be settled.” Melanie turned to Caitlyn. “Tomorrow you can tell Georgie everything.”

Caitlyn nodded. “Okay.”

I looked at my watch. Five minutes till the Bonaparte House opened for the dinner service. There was just enough time to hustle back there. Not enough time to even try to guess what Caitlyn was going to tell me tomorrow.

Fortunately, the customers came in steadily all night, so there was no opportunity to dwell on the upcoming revelation. Sophie had returned just after we opened, dragging her enormous hard-sided suitcase through the kitchen. She called eighty-six at nine o’clock, earlier than usual, but the streets were empty. We had two more weekends to go, then we’d be done for the season. It was always bittersweet closing up on the last day. But this winter I was looking forward to having the Bonaparte House to myself. And to spending some time with Jack. And I had a project to keep me busy—sorting through Gladys’s recipes. Somehow I thought I might not miss going to Greece after all.

I followed Sophie up the stairs. She had a pocket full of cash receipts tonight, and had won a thousand dollars at the casino, so she was in a good mood.

“How’s the tramp?”

Snort. “You mean Melanie? She’s getting out of the hospital tomorrow, then she’s going to stay with Liza at the castle.” Just wait till the episodes with Melanie and the mysterious doctor aired. Sophie would have the screaming meemies.

Sophie opened the door to her room and turned to face me. Her hazel eyes narrowed. “You okay about her here?”

I was pretty sure Sophie could find a way to get rid of Melanie if I’d asked. “It’s all right. We’re . . . getting to know each other again. I still don’t quite trust her, honestly.”

Sophie bobbed her head up and down, her lacquered burgundy helmet moving not a fraction of an inch. “That’s good. You gonna be careful.”

I wondered. Did Sophie feel threatened by my new relationship with Melanie? After all, she’d taken me in and treated me like a daughter. “Sophie,” I said.

She looked up at me.

“I love you.” And I wrapped her in a hug.

Her body stiffened, then relaxed and she returned the hug. “I love you too. Now go to bed.”

A grin played at my lips. There was nobody like Sophie.

I threw on an oversized T-shirt and crawled under the covers. Normally I would have taken a quick shower before bed to eliminate the food smell from my hair, but tonight I didn’t feel like bothering. The television remote was where it belonged, for once, on the night table, so I flipped through the channels until I settled on a ridiculous pseudo-documentary about UFOs.

As the interviewee replayed the details of her abduction, my mind wandered over the revelations of the last few days. Two murders. A trust worth millions—maybe hundreds of millions. A family that had died out, all but for my mother, me, and my daughter.

Or had it? Channing apparently thought there was another heir and was willing to kill—twice—in order to see that person get his or her share of the inheritance. Which meant he had some connection to this person. Maybe whoever it was had paid Channing to look for proof. As a handyman, he had worked for dozens, maybe hundreds, of people and businesses around the Bay. So he had access to a lot of homes and shops—which was how he’d managed to frame Inky.

My thoughts turned to Sheldon Todd, the genealogical investigator. He’d said he was looking for documentation. What if Channing had not been trying to find evidence for his enigmatic employer so that person could prove a claim? What if Channing had been paid to destroy it?

Then there was the arrowhead and the associated file that had been stolen from Jack’s apartment. Channing had worked for Gladys, so he could have taken those objects anytime. Why wait until Jack, a trained Coast Guard officer, had taken possession of them before the theft? It would have been far simpler—and safer—to take the items from a little old lady.

And what the heck did that arrowhead have to do with any of this?

I certainly wished I’d brought a glass of wine upstairs. But it was warm under the covers and it was a long way down the spiral staircase, across the dining rooms, and into my office and my locked desk drawer.

I sat up in bed. The quilt fell off my shoulders, but I barely registered the change in temperature. Something other than my semisecret bottle of wine was in that drawer: Doreen’s Bingo box. And the key I’d removed from the false bottom.

And the Bingo card with the odd markings. It was a treasure map. I was almost sure of it now.

Suddenly I understood. It wasn’t the interesting but not valuable arrowhead itself that was the final clue, which was why the pieces wouldn’t fit. It was the location where the arrowhead had been found, dug up by Herman Montgomery and my grandfather fifty or so years ago.

And I was pretty sure I knew where that was. On that little mound covered with the rusted farm implements out back of the farmhouse. Jack had said there were mounds built by indigenous people several thousand years ago all over the North Country, so it seemed likely that that was where this particular artifact had come from. Tomorrow, I’d have another look at the pile of junk. And bring a shovel from the toolshed, just in case there wasn’t one in the barn.

The television droned as I put all the pieces together one more time. And this time, they all fit. There were two remaining questions. What would Doreen’s carefully hidden little key open? And what would I find inside?

It was somewhere around two in the morning when I finally fell asleep. I woke, bleary eyed, five hours later to find the television still on and an infomercial for an expensive exercise program playing. I shut it off, lest I get any ideas. Long walks and an occasional evening yoga class in the high school gym were more my speed during the winter months.

After a quick shower, I headed downstairs. Sophie was already up, sitting with Dolly at the kitchen counter and drinking coffee. A box of donuts from the local bakery sat on the counter. I filled the third cup with coffee and cream, then sat down and selected a glazed jelly.

“You’re here early, Dolly,” I said.

“Sophie wants to go to Olive Garden for lunch, so we’re going to go pick up Marina and head for Watertown. We might see that new George Clooney movie while we’re there.” She wiped her fingers on a napkin. “What about you?”

It wouldn’t hurt to have two more people know where I was supposed to be, even though Hank would be meeting us there. “Melanie’s assistant and I will be out at the farm today.” I took a bite of the donut. Delicious.

Sophie frowned. “You want Marina’s gun?”

“What? No, no, I’ll be fine. It’s safe, and I won’t be alone.” Marina had given me her miniature antique gun once before. Not that I’d had the chance to use it, which was probably for the best.

The frown deepened. “You be careful.”

I patted the sleeve of her cardigan. “I will.”

An hour later they had left and I’d cleaned up the breakfast dishes. I retrieved Doreen’s Bingo box and its contents from my desk, then went outside to wait for Caitlyn. It was a beautiful morning, the sky a clear, pale blue and the leaves on the oak tree at the edge of the parking lot a bright golden yellow. I thought about sitting at the picnic table, but the benches were still wet with dew so I stood.

Anticipation bubbled through me. If Caitlyn followed Melanie’s instructions, today everything would be laid out on the table. And I’d get to test my theory about the Bingo card and the key.

Something brushed against my legs, then did it again in the opposite direction. I jumped involuntarily and looked down. An orange-and-cream-colored cat sat at my feet, its long tail swinging sinuously.

“Well, hello there.” I reached down slowly so as not to scare the creature away. When it didn’t run, I gave the cat a scratch on the top of its head. “Where’d you come from?” But I thought I knew. This was the same cat that I’d seen near the Suds-a-Rama and Jack’s apartment a few days ago.

“You’re a wanderer, aren’t you?” The animal meowed and twined itself around my legs. “Are you hungry, boy? Girl?” My experience with pets was extremely limited. I unlocked the kitchen door and retrieved a can of tuna.

I had to shove the cat aside gently with my foot when I stepped outside again. “Sorry, fella, but you can’t come inside a restaurant kitchen. You’ll have to dine al fresco.”

The cat purred and began eating the tuna from the paper plate I’d put it on. The animal looked well fed, but I suppose it was a lot more efficient being fed by a human than having to catch a rodent dinner.

A familiar sleek black BMW pulled into the parking lot. I left the cat to its meal and approached the car. The passenger window rolled down. “Get in,” Caitlyn said.

“Hi, Caitlyn. Nice to see you too.”

She looked sheepish. “Sorry. Melanie’s got me running ragged what with the show coming to film here and then all this extra work with Doreen’s estate and leasing the farm to those old hippies.”

“Did she give you some terms we can present to Hank before we take it to the lawyer?” I could only imagine what she’d want.

“Only a couple of things, really. She wants Hank to renovate the barn, at his own cost, and use the hayloft for the yoga studio. She’s got an idea she wants to add a floor, seats, and a stage to the ground level.”

“A stage?”

“She’s talking about putting together some summer stock shows.”

Hmmm. A professional theater in the North Country? It might just work. Boutique wineries were popping up all over Jefferson County. If somebody could organize bus tours from New York City or even Montreal or Toronto, that could be good news for all of us business owners.

Caitlyn drove out of the parking lot, and we made the main road out of town in record time. “So,” I said.

She held up a hand, fingers splayed into a half star. “Georgie, I promise I’ll explain everything when we get there, okay?”

Oh, fine. What was a few more minutes when I’d been dying of curiosity all night? So I leaned back on the seat and watched the countryside go by. Out here in the sticks the sugar maples were ablaze with scarlet leaves. In five months those trees would produce a fine-quality syrup with a little help from some wood-fired evaporators.

I wondered what my life would look like in a few months. My divorce would be final. Sophie would be in Greece for the winter. Cal would be there with her. Melanie would be back in California. Inky and Spiro? They hadn’t shared their plans with me, but it seemed likely they’d be around if they were going to get Spinky’s up and running for the spring. I’d have Liza, of course, and things seemed to be progressing with Jack. At least they were on my end. What he thought remained to be seen.

Almost before I knew it, we were pulling into the driveway of the farmhouse. “What time are we meeting Hank?”

Caitlyn shut off the ignition and whipped out her phone. “I told him to meet us here at ten. That’ll give us time to go over everything.”

I nodded. Finally I would get some answers. The front door swung open when the key was applied, and I stepped in cautiously. There was an umbrella in a stand by the coatrack and I grabbed it. It wouldn’t be any good against a gun or a knife, but if I had the element of surprise, I might be able to buy us enough time to get away.

But somehow I didn’t think we were in danger. If there was someone else out there pulling the strings, he didn’t seem to want to get his own hands dirty.

Caitlyn sat down at the kitchen table. She opened the flap of her enormous messenger bag, but didn’t take anything out of it, and set the bag on a chair. I parked myself opposite her and gave her an intent stare.

She took a deep breath and began. “You already know about the Bloodworth Trust. Elihu Bloodworth, your great-great-great-grandfather, was an extremely wealthy man. After he cut down most of the trees in Jefferson County and had made his fortune processing and selling them, he turned his attention to making the lives of his grown children and their spouses miserable. His wife had already gone to an early grave. Out of spite, he willed all his assets into a trust, giving his children a set amount of money with instructions to make their own way in the world, as he himself had done.”

“Okay, I knew all this. But go on.” I tapped my fingers impatiently on the Formica table.

“But the law does not allow a trust to exist permanently. There is something called the Rule Against Perpetuities. Elihu set up the trust to vest, or become the property of his heirs, twenty-one years after the death of his last grandchild born before the trust was established. Any grandchildren born after the trust was established—and we haven’t been able to find any—would not be entitled to inherit, nor would their heirs.”

Whew. That was a lot of legalese, but it corroborated what I’d figured out from the newspaper clipping I’d seen upstairs, the one with my grandmother’s handwriting on it and the date of next February.

“So who are the heirs? We know about Doreen and Melanie. But before he died, Channing said, ‘There’s only one true heir to the Bloodworth Trust.’ So who did he mean? Are Doreen and Melanie somehow disqualified?”

Caitlyn pushed her glasses up on her nose and looked at me. “We don’t know.”

“I don’t understand. The lawyers must know who the grandchildren were, and it’s only been a hundred years. The descendants should be easy to trace.”

“Oh, they are. But they’re not the problem.”

I blew out a breath. “Okay, I’ll bite. Who is the problem?”

Caitlyn turned toward the window, then back to me. “Again, we just don’t know.”

She was talking in circles, and it made me a little bit crazy. “Caitlyn, spit it out. We don’t have all morning before our company arrives.”

“There are still gray areas. And I’m just the messenger, by the way. Elihu’s granddaughter, your great-grandmother, was, by all accounts, pretty angry about being effectively cut out of the will. She started digging into Elihu’s background, probably in an effort to come up with something she could blackmail him with. And what she found shocked her.”

I leaned forward in the chair, wishing she’d get on with it. Hopefully, this story was about to get a lot more interesting because it had been pretty uninformative up to this point.

“It seems that Elihu came to Bonaparte Bay from downstate. He married your great-great-great-grandmother. But he neglected to tell her that he already had a wife.”