LeGarde Mysteries Box Set Page 4

  Max stuck his cold nose under the comforter and pushed it under my hand. I scrubbed my fingers slowly behind his ears, and resigned to get up.

  I glanced at the clock. Only seven. I sighed, realizing that sleeping in on Sunday morning wasn’t going to happen. I hurried over the cold floorboards to the bathroom, dressed and brushed my teeth, and went down stairs.

  Max danced at the kitchen door.

  “Okay, buddy. Here you go.” I opened the door and stared at the sparkling landscape, breathing in the chilly, sunlit air.

  Chains of frosty crystals hung from the porch steps and gutters. The structures resembled snowflake-icicles. Tree branches were sugarcoated with frosty white sugar. A faint memory rose to the top of my brain.

  Hoarfrost.

  The last time I’d seen such a phenomenon was ten years ago when Elsbeth and I were on vacation in Switzerland. An onslaught of rain, sleet, and snow had passed over the slopes of Grindlewald, a tiny village nestled at the foot of the Eiger Mountain. I thought back to the day it happened, remembering the temperatures had hovered at the freezing mark. There had been a loud and violent bout of lightning during the night. By morning, the air loomed thick with fog and enormous snow crystals had formed on every surface. Trees, fence posts, power lines, roof gables. The town had become a winter wonderland overnight.

  I looked out at the surreal scene; thankful Max had woken me early. Grabbing my 35mm Pentax camera from its hook on the mudroom wall, I walked around in my pajamas, parka, and snow boots and snapped dozens of photographs of the scenery, finally focusing on the formations of crystals that hung from the antique lantern on the front porch. Each line of crystals followed the contour of the lamp from top to bottom and trailed down, waving in the chill breeze. Strong rays of sun shone through the hoarfrost, causing iridescent, flickering reflections that bounced between the green glass and the ice. I took half a dozen shots, watching the red-orange sun creep onto the horizon.

  Finally satisfied, I went inside to meet the wakening household.

  Chapter 10

  “Opa, look! I carry him.” Johnny marched into the kitchen with Tristan struggling in his arms.

  The cat was nearly as long as Johnny was tall. His five-inch ruff stuck out around his dark face like a clown’s collar, and his sapphire blue eyes met mine with quiet indignation. I chuckled, realizing Johnny had probably already used up all his best behavior that morning in church. He’d been pretty good while we sat through the introductory hymns, but by the time his teacher had led him away, he’d been itching to misbehave. I’d seen it in his eyes, in his legs that drummed the pew with regularity, and with his twitching little body that couldn’t sit still.

  “I pick him up.” Tristan’s hind legs flailed in the air. With a giggle, the boy unceremoniously dumped the poor cat on the floor. Tristan scrambled, landing on all four feet. He walked away with his tail twitching, trying to reclaim his dignity.

  “Wow. You’re getting to be a big boy, aren’t you?”

  He grinned with pride and scampered to join me at the table. I sat with my favorite knife and wooden carving board, chopping red cabbage into fine slices. Sliding the broad square knife of the cleaver under a mound of shredded cabbage, I added it to the skillet simmering on the stove. The aroma of apple cider and vinegar rose from the pan. I stirred the mixture with a wooden spoon, pushing around pieces of already purple-blue apples.

  Johnny climbed onto a chair and watched. “What you doin’, Opa?”

  I put the cover back onto the sweet and sour red cabbage and turned to him. “Cooking dinner. You hungry?”

  He nodded enthusiastically. Siegfried emerged from the cellar door with a basket of carrots. He carried them to the sink and began to rinse off the sand.

  I walked over to inspect the products of our cold cellar. They’d been packed in sand back in October. “Do they still look good?”

  Siegfried lifted one carrot to his mouth and took a huge bite. He smiled and offered a small one to Johnny. “Ja. They are still good, Professor. Juicy,” he said. He took another bite and smiled at Johnny, then leaned down and reached for the well-worn Velveteen Rabbit discarded under the table. “Bunnies like carrots, Johnny. Here is one for him, too.”

  Johnny eagerly grabbed the carrot and put it up to his beloved rabbit’s mouth. “Num, num, num.”

  I peeled carrots, watching the gentle giant and his pint-sized sidekick play. Siegfried’s childlike nature complemented their friendship, and they spent many an hour together in easy company. Sometimes I felt a little jealous and wished I were five again.

  I grabbed three purple and white turnips. My mind drifted back to the boating accident that had sealed Siegfried’s fate and left him mildly brain damaged as a youth. The promising young Siegfried had been slated for college courses at the age of twelve, having shown amazing talent as a precocious mathematician. Mr. Baker hadn’t seen the boy swimming across the lake at dusk, and the when the prow of Baker’s boat struck Siegfried’s head, it nearly killed him. Comatose for three months, Siegfried struggled to regain his physical and mental functions, and after years of therapy he barely graduated high school at the age of twenty-one. In spite of his limitations, Siegfried had developed into a gentle companion without whom the family would be lost.

  I combined the chopped turnips and carrots into a saucepan and filled it with water. Upstairs, a bedroom door slammed and footsteps hurried down the stairs.

  Harold burst into the room, his face flushed. Johnny and Siegfried shrank from his seething gaze.

  “I told you not to feed him between meals!” He directed the cold, angry words to Siegfried.

  Siegfried blanched and laid a protective hand on Johnny’s shoulder. His eyes widened in alarm. “I—”

  “Can’t you remember anything?” Harold grabbed the carrot from the boy’s hands.

  Johnny’s face crumbled and a fat tear rolled down his cheek.

  Anger boiled inside me. I turned from the stove and herded Harold into the next room, whispering furiously. “I gave the carrot to Johnny, you arrogant prick. There’s no harm in a little healthy snack before dinner.” I took a deep breath, clenching the fist I ached to push through his jaw. “It’s good for him, for God’s sake.” Years of repressed anger spewed from me, threatening to escalate. For three years, I’d been defending Siegfried against this revolting man. The dam had finally burst. “Don’t take your troubles out on Johnny again, you understand?” I poked my finger into his chest, just the way Baxter had done to me. “Or on my daughter, for that matter. And the next time you refer to Siegfried’s intelligence in that condescending tone, I’m gonna wipe that supercilious look right off your face.”

  His face tensed and a cold expression froze his features. “Well, well. A threat of violence from Mr. Perfection. Your opinion is finally aired. Don’t you feel better, Opa?”

  I stared at him in mild shock, surprised at the level of malice shooting from his eyes.

  “I’m serious, Harold,” I pressed closer to him, smelling his aftershave. “The family won’t tolerate your behavior much longer. If it doesn’t stop, you’ll have to leave.”

  He smiled wickedly at me and winked. “Don’t you think that’s up to Freddie?” He spun, grabbed his coat, and slammed the door on his way out.

  Chapter 11

  I met Freddie at the bottom of the stairs, worried that Harold might have hurt her. Aside from a tight expression on her face, she seemed unharmed. She avoided me and picked up Tristan, burying her face in his white fluff.

  I stood by her side. “Freddie?”

  Her voice caught. “Yeah, Dad?”

  I slid my arms around her shoulders, but she still avoided my eyes. Tristan purred happily between us. “Is there something I can do to help?”

  She shook her head. “Not really.”

  “Honey, you can’t live like this much longer. He seems to be getting worse, not better.”

  Her head bobbed up and down once. “I know.”

  Over th
e last three years, I’d constantly promised Freddie I wouldn’t interfere in their relationship, especially during two periods of Harold’s infidelity when I’d been about to bounce him out of the house. I took a deep breath and continued to break the promise. “Tell you the truth, sweetheart, I’m starting to wonder how far he’ll actually go the next time he fights with you.”

  She was silent.

  “He hasn’t hit you, has he?”

  She shook her head. “No, Dad. He’s not like that.”

  I studied her when she finally lifted her eyes to mine, praying she was right.

  An expression of defeat lurked behind her faltering smile. Her normally lively eyes were muted with a dull tarnish, reflecting major loss. The poor girl had fallen hard for Harold while she’d been in veterinary school at Cornell. He’d been suave and charming. The courtship had been fiery, but brief. His true colors began to leak from his well-polished exterior shortly after they married and she'd announced her pregnancy ten months later.

  Tristan jumped down. I hugged Freddie tight, keeping my voice low. “I know it’s been hard, honey, I’m so sorry.”

  She nodded her head against my chest.

  “Maybe you could try a separation, or marriage counseling? I hate to say it, but for Johnny’s sake, something has to be done.”

  She lifted her face to mine and stared straight into my eyes with a look of determination that hadn’t been there before. “I know. Just give me some time to sort it all out. I’ll handle it soon, I promise.”

  “Okay, princess.” I smoothed her fine honey-colored hair back from her forehead.

  She took a deep breath and gave me a small smile. “Can I help with dinner?”

  I didn’t answer right away. Although she’d founded and managed a thriving veterinary practice, Freddie was the world’s worst cook. “How about setting the table? Everything’s under control in the kitchen.”

  She barked a laugh and walked to the china cabinet. She knew I was trying to keep her as far from the food as possible. “It’s a deal. Hey, can we use the Limoges today? We haven’t eaten off this set in ages.”

  Freddie’s great, great, great, great grandmother had brought the fine bone china to New York via covered wagon in the late seventeen hundreds. Miraculously, we’d broken only one delicately flowered teacup since it had been bequeathed to us.

  “Why not? It doesn’t do much good sitting behind glass, does it?”

  She reached up to the stack of plates. “How many are we having today?”

  I counted off on my fingers. “There’s you and Johnny, Siegfried, me—that’s four—and Oscar and Millie, that’s six—Reverend Hardina, if he can make it. Oh! Mrs. Pierce said she’d be home early today. Better set it for eight.”

  Freddie set the long, trestle table in the dining room and I jogged to the stove to turn down the carrots and turnips. They’d nearly boiled over. I tested them with a fork. Tender. Ready to mash.

  Siegfried had lifted Johnny down from his chair and was giving him a horseback ride around the kitchen floor. The tears had disappeared and were replaced with squeals of delight each time his mighty steed raised his front hooves and neighed.

  A crunch of gravel on the driveway announced the arrival of Oscar and Millie Stone. I looked out the kitchen window and spotted their late model Lincoln parked close to the porch. Siegfried heard it too, and after safely depositing Johnny onto the linoleum, he hurried outside to help with Millie’s wheelchair.

  I drained the vegetables and whipped them with butter and saffron, covered them, and placed the bowl on a hotplate. The pork chops sizzled from the skillet. I flipped them over and added some more fresh thyme and garlic to the pan, then reached into the refrigerator to gather the salad ingredients.

  Oscar held the kitchen door open so Siegfried could push Millie’s wheelchair up the homemade ramp and over the threshold.

  I set the Boston lettuce, radicchio, and French endive on the table and approached my adopted parents. “Hi Millie. So good to see you.” I kissed Millie’s soft cheek, gently patting one of her twisted, arthritic hands. I knew she was in pain—she always was, according to Oscar—but she’d never let on.

  She kissed me back and smiled through twinkling hazel eyes. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Gus. It smells heavenly.”

  The strain of the morning’s confrontation with Harold began to melt.

  Oscar closed the door and replaced Siegfried behind the wheelchair, his silky white hair ruffled by the wind. He reached up and smoothed a stray lock straight back from his forehead and leaned down to help Millie with her coat. I watched the couple interact, and a lump formed in my throat. They’d been married forty-seven years. Oscar treated his wife like a new bride each day, tending to her needs assiduously and rarely leaving her side since she’d become chair-bound. He’d nonchalantly given up traveling as a world-renowned nature photographer, busying himself instead with local photography and a renewed interest in the history of the Genesee Valley. By default, Oscar had become the local resident historian and had begun to amass enormous amounts of material about the region that he’d catalogued for posterity in the Historical Society’s cobblestone house in the village of Conaroga.

  Oscar tucked Millie’s gloves into her coat pockets. “Do I smell homemade applesauce?” His blue eyes flashed.

  “Indeed you do, my friend. I made it with Golden Spies from the cold cellar. With cinnamon, brown sugar, and lemon, just the way you like it.”

  He shrugged out of his own coat and answered with a faint English accent. “That’s my favorite, don’t-you-know.”

  Oscar and Millie Stone had been dear friends of my parents and were part of our extended family. Since the death of my parents and the loss of their son, William, in Vietnam, the natural progression had been a sort of mutual adoption. We spent a great deal of time together and had grown especially close over the years.

  Siegfried hung the coats in the mudroom. Oscar pushed Millie’s chair into the living room with Johnny chattering at their side. I laid a cobalt blue glass salad bowl on the farm table with two heads of Boston lettuce. Methodically, I shredded and tossed the pieces into the bowl. My thoughts drifted back to the experiences at Baxter’s house.

  The whimper from yesterday morning replayed in my brain. I chopped a small head of radicchio and struggled to imagine how an animal could have made the sound. It certainly hadn’t sounded like a cat.

  Reaching over for the French endive, I began to slice them into thin rings. Troubling thoughts rambled through my brain.

  If there is a child in the house, isn’t it my duty as a citizen to ensure that he or she is safe?

  I rinsed a package of red grape tomatoes under the sink and dumped them into the blue bowl.

  What if the child had some sort of deformity? What if he was sick and tired of people staring or ridiculing the poor thing? Maybe Baxter was defending his own privacy. After all, it was his right.

  I shook my head and minced cilantro leaves, rejecting the idea. He wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble to lie about having a child in the first place—and he hadn’t come across as the most sensitive guy in town. There’d been a callous quality about him and a look of ruthlessness in those small gray eyes.

  I could drive by the place and take another look. What harm could that do?

  I emptied a can of black olives into the bowl and then added the crumbled feta cheese. After I mixed the salad with wooden tongs, I decided I’d take a drive past Baxter’s house after dinner.

  With the issue temporarily settled, I turned my attention back to the duties at hand. Siegfried helped set up the dishes of food on the buffet in the dining room. We’d discovered it was the most expeditious manner in which to feed our tribe. When we were ready and had called the family to dinner, a set of light footsteps clattered across the porch.

  Mrs. Adelaide Pierce pushed open the kitchen door with a flourish, her cheeks pink from the cold air. “Oh my. It’s frigid out there,” she twittered, breezin
g into the house.

  During the week, Mrs. Pierce lived with us while she kept house and tended to Johnny. Her grandmotherly tendencies suited our family perfectly. She usually visited her sister, Eloise, in Syracuse on the weekends when the roads were clear enough for travel. A transplanted Floridian, Mrs. Pierce had never become accustomed to the cold and snow.

  I smiled broadly when she bustled into the kitchen. “Welcome home.”

  She removed the scarf from her head and trotted into her first floor bedroom to hang her coat. When she returned, she tied a yellow apron around her waist. “Well, it looks like I just made it.” She inspected the lemon squares baking in the oven. The timer went off and she removed the Pyrex dish, inhaling the aroma with apparent glee. “Oh, they smell so good.”

  I leaned over her to turn off the stove. “Dinner’s ready.”

  She straightened and patted the neat gray bun at the base of her neck. “Thank you, Gustave. I’m ravenous.”

  ***

  Mrs. Pierce wagged a finger in my face. “Don't you even think about it, Gustave.”

  I rinsed a dinner plate and slid it into the dishwasher, watching the taillights from Oscar’s car disappear down the driveway. The company of old friends had been cathartic.

  “Adelaide Pierce, it's your day off. We don't expect you to come home on a Sunday evening to wash dishes, for Heaven's sake.”

  She pouted and pushed me aside. “The dishes are my territory. Besides, what else do I have to keep busy? You know I hate being idle. You just run along, now. I’m sure you have plenty of chores left on your list.”

  She pointed to the list I kept on the refrigerator under a magnet shaped like a head of broccoli. “Go on. Shoo!”

  “Well, I do have to pick up a few things at the market. Maybe I’ll just run out and—”

  She soaped up a pan and had already started singing a Jeannette MacDonald song in her thin warbling voice. “When I’m calling you—oooo—oooo.”