Excerpt From Jo Grant’s Journal:
…I never expected Tommy and me to choose as badly as we did. Mom and Dad were good together and set an example we thought we could follow.
They were different from each other. Mom loved books, but couldn’t be trusted with numbers. Dad was born to do math and science, and wanted to be a big animal vet but never got to college, helping his folks through the Depression like he did, and caring for us too.
He studied hard on his own, and learned from all our vets. And I do think Dad was content. Once he got out of running the motor court and figured out how to move here, where he could work with horses fulltime.
He respected the way Mom studied literature, and would’ve been glad if he’d lived long enough to see her teach high school, but it seemed like their differences made the charge stronger between them.
’Course they did have the basics in common. Honesty and common sense and the same understanding of what people should and shouldn’t do. And what you saw was about what you got with them. And maybe that made Tom and me vulnerable to folks who lie and manipulate. Nate wanted more than one woman and lied without batting an eye. Tom’s lady was noticeably shallow. She wouldn’t have waited for anyone, while swearing to be true forever when he went off to war. She wanted a husband now, and if it was one with money and connections, so much the better. I never did think she was good enough for Tom. And I probably wasn’t too subtle.
And who’s to say I’m not shallow? There’s a restlessness and a running-away urge pushing me. And I know I’m afraid of getting taken again…
Sunday, April 22, 1962
Jo Grant left Toss on the front porch of her house drinking a beer with one of his oldest pheasant-hunting friends and drove east through Lexington toward Paris.
She’d phoned the person she knew as Tara Wilson’s Aunt Betsy the day before – the nurse she’d first met as a little kid when her dad had trained a colt for Betsy, who was generally called Betts. Betts had told Jo that the Tara Wilson Jo had known was indeed the Tara Kruse Spence was now engaged to. And she’d agreed to tell what she knew.
Jo found her farm south of the main road to Paris on Bethlehem Road – ten acres, well cared for, with the house close to the street.
She pulled in and opened the farm gate, latching it behind her, and parked by the unattached garage behind the small gray white-trimmed bungalow, a hundred feet in front of a modest-sized gray and white barn.
There was a sand riding area to the right of the barn, and Betsy Seton was standing in the center while a young girl, maybe seven or eight, trotted in a circle around her.
She was riding an old bay gelding, small and probably part Morgan, with a large Roman nose that had a wide indented bald patch in the center, exposing shiny black skin.
His trot looked stiff, and when they slowed to a walk, and got anywhere near the grass verge, he’d try to pull the reins out of the girl’s hands and grab a bite to eat.
Betts said, “Don’t let Bert do that! Hold him with your back!”
The girl looked embarrassed and scrambled to pull his head up and get him to walk on. Bert decided to let her have her way and ambled forward on the circle.
“That’s enough for today, Kath. Walk him around for a few minutes and then wash him off. Your canter work was much better. Did it feel good to you?”
Kath nodded and smiled shyly, her long blond hair blowing in wisps below her helmet, her back moving with Bert as he walked, her short legs in knee-high chaps staying still the way they should.
Betts Seton, five ten and very thin, but strong-muscled and big-boned, walked over to Jo with the same long-legged stride Jo remembered from childhood and stuck out a work-hardened hand. “It’s good to see you all grown up. It’s been way too long.”
“I know. It really has. You look exactly the same.”
Betsy laughed and said, “Yeah, sure. My hair didn’t use to be two-thirds gray.”
They were both watching Kath, beaming to herself, walk Bert on the grass riding area between two paddocks.
“He’ll try to eat there, so be prepared.”
Kath nodded and kept hold of the reins when Bert tried to duck his head.
“That’s Bert’s one and only fault. He never shies at anything. He won’t canter, even if I’ve got him on a lunge line, no matter what I tell him, till he thinks the kids are ready, and he wouldn’t do anything mean if you put a gun to his head.
“And then, when we take him to a little show, he stops schlepping around, and picks himself up, and wins all kinds of classes.”
“He sounds like the perfect school horse.”
“He is. A friend of mine with a big barn retired him and gave him to me. I only teach with him three hours a week, and only with little kids. But he seems to like the excitement.”
“What’s with the bald spot on his nose?”
“The woman who owned him before my friend put a halter on him that was too small and never took it off, just put the bridle on top. I’d like to have five minutes alone with her in a dark deserted alley.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“Let me finish with Kath, and get the horses fed, and we’ll grab some tea and talk.”
They’d just sat down on white wrought-iron chairs under a vine-covered arbor that flickered and danced with afternoon sun, when Betsy asked Jo if she still rode.
They talked horses then, while Betts poured iced tea and pushed bowls of chips and onion dip toward Jo across the glass-topped table. Then she leaned back and studied Jo for a minute, before asking what she wanted to know about Tara.
“First of all, would you mind if I take notes? I want to get my facts straight, and I can do shorthand so it won’t slow us down. I worked as a secretary to get through college.”
“I don’t mind. Whatever you want to do.”
“Thanks. I’d like to have some idea of what she did after she left high school, so that if she’s really as unstable and mean as I think she used to be, I can tell my friend who’s engaged to her, and let him check it out.”
“He probably won’t listen. And he may never speak to you again.”
“I know. But I can’t stand by and watch, if she’s still the way she was when I knew her.”
“Worse, I’d say. I don’t ever see her, but I hear about what she does through the rest of the family. What’s the last thing you knew?” Betts Seton ran a hand through her short wavy hair, then laid her arms on the arms of her chair, while she watched Jo.
“She left here in high school, maybe her freshman year, and went to live with her grandparents in Knoxville. Then she came back briefly, and ran off with some guy when she was a sophomore or junior. The fiancé she has now never knew her then. He’s eleven years older than she is.”
Betts said, “Remember when she was giving that boy here all that trouble, back when she was in junior high? Her mother and I dragged her to a psychiatrist to see if we could get her some help. He and I both worked at St. Joe’s Hospital, and I respected him a good deal. He told us she needed intensive treatment but she wouldn’t believe him. Everything was everybody else’s fault, and she ended up deliberately slamming his hand in the door on her way out of his office the last time she saw him.”
“Wonderful.”
“Yeah. Now her mother, my sister Lois, is none too stable herself, in my opinion, and the two of them together were a disaster. Tara’s smart. And she could tie Lois up in knots and wear her down at will. That’s one of the first things you’ve got to understand. Tara is relentless. She wants what she wants, and she will not give up. And when she hears what she doesn’t want to hear or she doesn’t get her way, she feels perfectly justified in hurting whoever’s thwarted her.”
“That’s scary.”
“Yeah, I think it is. Anyway, after she left my parents in Knoxville and came back here her sophomore year, she met a twenty-two-year-old guy named Rusty Rassmusen at a football game. He came with a friend of his who’d been a football star here and had come back to watch a game.
“Rusty was originally from Minnesota, but was living in Louisville, working for a commercial construction company. He’d been in the army, and had been stationed at Fort Knox in Louisville, and still had friends there. A sergeant in the office of a tank outfit in particular.”
“So she was sixteen and he was twenty-two?”
“Yep. Rusty and Tara began dating, and she ran away and moved in with him, and started going to school in Louisville. Her mom didn’t know what to do with her, and pretty much washed her hands of her, and let her do what she wanted. That December she turned seventeen, and by then she was pregnant. She went a couple more months to school, but once she started to show, she wasn’t allowed to attend. So she finished high school with a G.R.E. equivalency test, and took a correspondence course in bookkeeping. Tara does want to be able to get a job, if the worst ever happens and she finds herself alone. She also intended to get pregnant, by the way. She wants every guy to be tied to her, and she figures a child will do that.”
“How can anyone think like that?”
“I don’t get it, but we’ve both seen it. I’ve seen it more than once. Anyhow, I’ve had dealings with Rusty since that time, for reasons you’ll see in a minute, and his side of the story is that as soon as she got pregnant, she started treating him like dirt, the way she had her family. She stopped lifting a finger. She wouldn’t keep the house neat, or cook anything, or do the grocery shopping. She blamed it first on her pregnancy, then on Jessica, after she was born.
“Even before she had the baby, Tara was keeping Rusty awake all night, screaming and fighting about nothing. But generally when they went out with other people she behaved herself fairly well. Though sometime around then she started making a point of talking to a friend of Rusty’s, the one I mentioned who was an office guy in the tank corps.
“She was always saying there was something wrong with her. Her stomach was upset, or she had a horrible headache, and she had to stay in bed and be waited on. She’d done violent things by then too. She’d thrown a chair into a wall. She’d cut up some curtains or something. And when Jessica was a little over a year, when Tara was nineteen, Rusty took Jessica, supposedly to a park, and drove to Wichita, Kansas where his construction company had another branch, and he’d arranged another job.
“He didn’t tell Tara where he was going. He just called her and told her Jess was safe, and he had a lawyer working on getting him custody. That he’d left an envelope with a sizeable amount of money in his dresser drawer to help till she got a job. He said he had plenty of evidence of her erratic behavior, that he had letters from the next door neighbor, the landlord, and me, as well as others. And that he’d be in touch later. I did write a letter for him. I did. I felt like I had to. I wanted to see Jessica safely away from her. And by that time I trusted Rusty more than I trusted her.”
“How did Tara react?”
“She blew up at her mom and me. She threw another brick through my living room window. She’d done that before when I took her to the doctor. She ranted and raved for a few days, and then pretty much dropped it. I think she was actually glad not to have to be bothered with Jessica if Rusty wasn’t there to take care of her. He’d cooked, and bathed Jess, and got up at night with her, and did the shopping, and took her to the docs. Tara had worked on her G.R.E. and her bookkeeping course, but that was pretty much it.”
“Geeze.”
“Rusty’s a smart guy. And he saw where it was going. So he never let her know where they were. Another reason he went to Wichita was that his sister was there, and she’d agreed to help with Jess, trying to give her a stable situation. A couple of years later, he moved back to Minnesota, where his parents helped raise her before he married his high school sweetheart. He eventually gave Tara a financial settlement she was happy to take, to get custody of Jess. I don’t know exactly how all the legal stuff got done, but he has to let Tara see her twice a year, but she didn’t even want to for several years.”
Jo was still taking notes, and Betsy waited till she’d finished, while she drank iced tea.
“What happened then?”
“I know less about the next stage, but I can give you the name of the woman who does. Grace Willoughby. I know where she used to live, and that may help you trace her. I know for a fact that within weeks of Rusty’s departure, Tara talked Grace, who was the wife of one of the local ministers, into letting her move in with them.
“Tara got a job somewhere too, but something went wrong, and the next thing we heard, six months after Rusty left, she’d married the sergeant who’d been a friend of Rusty’s and was on her way to Germany where he was being stationed.”
“Is that Giselle’s dad?”
“As far as we know, yes.” Betts laughed, and shook her head, then popped a chip in her mouth.
“What happened with him?”
“I don’t know much about it. His name is Dwayne Kruse. I only talked to him once, and I don’t know where he is, though I imagine he’s still in the army. All I know is she came back with Giselle and moved in with my folks in Knoxville. She said he’d beaten her up, and she divorced him. By then I didn’t want to be around her any more than she wanted to be around me, so I really don’t know the details. Probably nobody here does, because the truth wouldn’t come from her. Talking to him makes the most sense, if you can find out where he is. Do you have any contacts in the army?”
“I don’t now since Tom died. But I know someone who might.”
“I’m sorry about Tom. And your mom too. I meant to say that before.”
“Thanks. So what happened next? And what about Tara’s dad? Nobody ever says anything.”
“Her father lives in Knoxville, and over the years he’s tried to stay in touch, but she hasn’t wanted to. When she was in Knoxville with my folks, she never even went to see him. She doesn’t like the stepmom and has never felt suitably appreciated since they’ve had kids of their own. I know she stayed with my folks for several months after she got back from Germany, and my dad helped her get a secretarial job at the Chamber of Commerce. He has a hardware store and had friends at the Chamber who took a chance on her. My mom took care of Giselle so Tara could go to work.
“But she and my folks were hassling within weeks. They still let her move into a house they rent out when Giselle was a year and a half, and they hardly charged her a thing. Tara left her with the next-door neighbor while she worked, and had one boyfriend after another, and was engaged at least twice in the two years she stayed in Knoxville. Within days of when her child support and alimony came through, she started fighting with people at work and quit just before she would’ve gotten fired. My dad heard that from his contacts at the Chamber.
“Then she came here and moved in with her mom. And her first job here was with Equine Pharmaceuticals.”
“Really? That’s where my friend who may have contacts with the army works. He hasn’t been there long, and I didn’t know Tara worked there.”
“She lasted there longer than any other job I know about. Probably close to three years. But sometime during the first year there was a big blow-up with my mom, and she left her place and rented a small house not far from U.K. The next-door neighbor watched Giselle to begin with when Tara was at work, but Gigi’s almost six now, and the neighbor only watches her when she gets home from kindergarten. That’s essentially all I know.”
“Wow.” Jo was staring at Betsy, her eyebrows baffled above worried eyes, her lips pressed together.
“That’s my unselfish, upstanding niece. She can be extremely persuasive. You have to understand that. She plays the victim role better than anybody and makes a whole lot of men want to take care of her at the same time she manages to make them think she’s plucky and strong and independent. That she’s someone who’s suffered unbelievable betrayal but gallantly soldiers on to raise her daughter alone.”
“How does she treat Giselle?”
“Aside from wanting everyone else to take care of her on a day-to-day basis, I think Tara loves her. I don’t think she deliberately mistreats her in any way. Gigi may be the only person Tara’s ever actually cared about. But because of the way Tara is, she must be doing her damage. I mean, what kind of an example is she? She’ll lie just to lie about absolutely anything. Things that don’t matter at all. Maybe she thinks lying keeps people from knowing anything about who she really is.”
Jo said, “I guess that makes some kind of perverted sense.”
“It’s only my own interpretation. I’ve never understood her. Though I do know she’s very good at meeting somebody and figuring out what will appeal to them, and making herself seem to be that. It’s like she puts on a tailor-made persona, one after another, depending on what the man wants. It’s always a man. She has no use for women. And nothing has ever been her fault, believe me. I have no doubt that mental illness plays a large part in what she does. But Giselle’s there, seeing it all the time, and that concerns me for her.”
“Yes. What a way to grow up.”
They were both quiet for a minute. Watching a Great Horned Owl who sat scrutinizing the world from a telephone line by the road.
“Would you be willing to give me whatever information you have about the minister’s wife in Louisville, and the last location of Dwayne Kruse?”
“Sure.” Betsy wrote what she knew in Jo’s notebook and then handed it back.
“I’ll call my friend tonight, the one who might have some way of tracing Dwayne.”
“Good.”
“If I type up my notes, would you be willing to sign them? So the fiancé knows they’re accurate?”
“Of course. I’d like to do something to help some poor sucker keep from getting taken to the cleaners. I’m still working at St. Joe’s, by the way, so that’d be closer for you.”
“I could bring the notes to you there, maybe even tomorrow.”
“Give me a call in Critical Care. Tomorrow I’m working seven to three. Managing the department means you can get me at the nurses’ station more often than not.”
“I’ll call before I come. Why don’t you trailer a horse over sometime? We could ride cross country like we used to, and then spend time with Toss.”
“I’d like that. How’s Toss doing with the broken legs?”
“About like you’d expect. Grumbling about the wheelchair and looking for things to do. He’s sorted the low shelves in every tack room, and he’s spent a lot of time giving the young guy who’s helping out his perspective on the horse business.”
“He knows it.”
“Yes, he does. The best and the worst, both.”
Monday, April 23, 1962
“Rachel, sweetie, I know how you feel, but it’s not something you can get involved in.” Bob Harrison watched his wife from behind his large messy desk as she stood and stared out the window at the etched brass sign that read Equine Pharmaceuticals in the center of the wide front lawn. “Rachel?”
“What?”
“It’s a bigger issue than the family. The business needs Alan Munro. He’s a chemical engineer who can help us design and test formulations, and evaluate raw materials with greater speed and accuracy, and manufacture so there’s greater consistency from one batch to another. And that, with pharmaceuticals, is the first and final necessity when you’re—”
“That may be true, but—”
“Rachel, please—”
“It’s not fair to Brad. It looks like you’re bringing in someone from the outside because you don’t have confidence in him.” She was a small woman, short and a little plump, wearing a plain brown shirtwaist dress, who looked tired and sad and worried when she sat down in front of her husband, holding her large white purse in her lap with short sturdy hands.
“It’s got nothing to do with Brad. He’s got no experience or expertise in any of those areas. He trained as a lawyer and can help us with patents, even though he never took the bar exam. He oversees accounting just fine. But he’s not a scientist, and he can’t possibly be expected to contribute to the—”
“You never have gotten over him not taking the bar exam. You still hold it against him.”
“No, I don’t. But it does show a lack of followthrough. You know it does. You can see that yourself.”
“He was sick then. He’d just gotten over mono.”
“He could’ve taken it another time, just like anyone else.”
“You don’t respect him because he’s not a scientist.”
Bob Harrison sat for a minute gazing silently at his wife, then he buttoned his lab coat and slid a red lab crayon into its breast pocket. He was a thin man, maybe five feet ten. Not handsome, but calm-looking and purposeful, and ready to get to work. “Can we talk about this tonight? Alan seems like a fine young man and I want you to get to know him. And believe you me, with us as small a business as we are, we’re lucky to have gotten someone of his caliber and experience.”
“Dad?” Brad Harrison was standing in the door looking from one to the other. He was taller and rounder than his father, but you could see he was his father’s son, with the same high forehead and dark angled eyebrows. Though unlike his dad, Brad had very little chin and a small narrow rabbity mouth that made him look indecisive. “What are you doing here, Mom?”
“Talking to your father. I’m on my way to see your grandmother and take her to the doctor.”
“Could I talk to you later this afternoon? There’re some changes being made that need to be discussed.” Brad was looking at his dad, one hand in his pants pocket rattling loose change.
“You two go right ahead. Don’t wait on account of me.” Rachel Harrison was up and walking when she said, “I’ll see you at home tonight, Bob,” as she smiled at her husband.
“Your mother’s worried about your grandmother. On top of all the heart trouble, her memory’s beginning to fail.”
“It has been for months. So when can you and I talk?” Brad was standing to the left of the open door.
Alan Munro didn’t see him until he’d stepped through. “Oh, I’m sorry. I can make another appointment for later, Mr. Harrison.”
“Call me Bob like everybody else. Alan and I have an appointment, Brad. Then we’re going to the lab meeting.”
Brad didn’t leave. He stood where he was with his hands in his pockets staring at his dad’s desk.
Alan looked at Bob Harrison, who gestured toward a chair. And Alan sat and waited a minute before he decided he might as well start. “I think we need to reorganize the lab. The analytical work ought to be concentrated in one area, and we need more bench space. I don’t think it’ll cost a great deal. It’s more design and work station reorganization, and I wondered if it would be okay if I asked Jo Grant to take a look. Maybe find out what she’d charge per hour, and get an estimate of what she thinks it would take to evaluate and redesign it.”
“Fine with me. I haven’t had time to get into it.”
“If any changes are made,” Brad said, moving closer to his father’s desk and crossing his arms across his midriff, “there’s a longstanding problem in the lab that needs to be fixed soon. The toe space under the cabinets. The baseboards, or whatever you call them, are entirely too low.”
“I guess I hadn’t noticed.” Alan was looking at Brad, but aware of Bob just past him, looking away from them both.
“Someone could stub their toes. Ashtrays too. In the truck drivers’ lounge. There aren’t enough, and they aren’t emptied when they should be, and it doesn’t make a good impression.”
“Ah.” Alan said, “I’ll talk to Jo about the toe space. I guess the plant manager or the maintenance guys are the ones to talk to about the ashtrays.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d take care of that.” Brad was smoothing his tie, squishing his small double chin against what jaw he had, while his thin reddish brown hair flopped across his forehead.
“That’s nothing Alan should be bothering with. You talk to maintenance. Alan’s here as a chemical engineer to help us improve our laboratory and production methods. And right now, Brad, Alan and I need to talk.” Bob glanced at Alan and then looked away with a slightly embarrassed expression on his face that told Alan a lot – that Bob knew what he’d just seen and wished it hadn’t happened.
Brad said, “Fine,” and walked out the door leaving a silence behind him Alan filled first. “Before we talk about the lab meeting, there’s something personal I’d like to bring up.”
He told Bob Harrison about Jack Freeman needing a job and asked if he had any ideas about where he ought to look. “You know the business community better than anyone else I know. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but—”
“No, not at all. We don’t have anything here that’s suitable. If he doesn’t know horses, the farms would be a long shot. Perhaps he should try Alice Franklin. Booker told me their maintenance man had a heart attack two or three weeks ago. Maybe that would be a possibility. And now that we’re on the subject, let me ask you something.”
“Sure.”
“Someone told me Spencer’s engaged.”
“Right. To someone named Tara Kruse. She works at Blue Grass Horse Vans.”
Bob Harrison was quiet for a minute, while twirling a pen on his desk. “Tara worked here for almost three years.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t suppose Spence would welcome my perspective.” Harrison said it like a statement, but the gray eyes studied Alan as though he were hoping Alan would contradict him.
“It’s always a gamble. I knew a minister who used to say that an engaged couple and their families, right before the wedding, are temporarily insane.”
Bob Harrison smiled, then stared out the window for a minute. “That’s an accurate description, even allowing for hyperbole.” He sighed slowly, as he took off his black-framed glasses and rubbed the muscles at the top of his jaws by the gray patches at his temples.
Alan laid a paper on his desk and leaned back in his chair. “Here’s my take on the wormer formulations and the steroid cream for hives.”