The Daughters of Julian Dane Read online

  He had not mentioned either subject again. For the sake of the church budget, and the numerous people whose lives he could help make a little better through the woman’s generosity, he couldn’t afford to antagonize her.

  He parked the white Buick in front of the short walk to the marble steps that rose more than five feet off the ground to the front porch. Fluted columns supported an identical porch and railing for the third floor. The massive wood door was bordered by two long beveled glass windows and displayed a large, plain, brass knocker as its only ornament. Morris lifted the knocker and let it drop twice. The door was opened almost immediately by Hayes, the butler. He was a tall, thin, well preserved gentleman in his late seventies or early eighties, clean shaven with neat, white hair.

  “Good afternoon, Sir. It’s good to see you again,” Hayes said.

  “And a good afternoon to you, Hayes. How’ve you been?”

  “Fine, Sir, but Miss Willy is a bit under the weather. She’ll be receiving you this afternoon in the upstairs sitting room.”

  “I hope it’s not the flu. There seems to be a lot of it still going around.”

  “No, Sir. She had a slight accident, which I’m sure she’ll tell you about. If you’ll follow me, Sir?”

  Morris walked beside Hayes, his steps slowed to match the older man’s, up the graceful, curving, white marble stairway to the first room on the left of the next floor. When he walked into the room, he immediately saw that, indeed, Miss Willy had been involved in some sort of an accident.

  Wilhelmina Stone, at seventy-three, was a lady of medium build and height, who enjoyed her food, but knew when to stop just short of pleasingly plump. Her dark blond hair showed very little gray, and her hazel eyes could still sparkle when she was amused. She was seated on a beautiful, classic Louis XVI sofa upholstered in a rich maroon silk damask.

  Immaculately dressed in a teal blue hostess gown, her usual attire, her coiffure perfect, causing the bruise on her left cheek, and the sling that supported her left arm to appear out of character.

  “Well, if it isn’t the good Reverend arriving just in time for tea,” she greeted him in her usual light, sarcastic manner.

  “I do believe I have a standing invitation,” Morris replied in the familiar banter that had developed between them over the years. “So glad I caught you at home.”

  “Hayes, tell Mattie we’re ready for tea,” she said to the butler, who was already picking up the phone. He then left them alone.

  “I know you’re going to sit down, so take this chair,” she said motioning to a matching side chair to her right and almost in front of her. “I like feasting my eyes on you,” she admitted boldly. “The men in your congregation might nap during your sermons, but I doubt that any of the women do.”

  “Nobody naps during my sermons, Miss Willy,” Morris said ignoring her reference to his looks.

  “Don’t tell me. You are on radio, you know.”

  “I’m happy to know you listen.”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “When I spend money, I like to know what I’m getting. But I’ll give you credit. You do seem to be the most respected and admired minister that church has had in many a year. I’d say you’ll be around for a while.”

  That was good to hear, he thought, and wondered again, as he often did, just who her other confidants were besides Grant Cutler, the Stonegate attorney, and himself. He knew that few of the town’s citizenry ever passed through those gates. Morris chuckled. “Thank you for the compliment, Miss Willy, but now, are you going to tell me about your accident, or just keep me wondering?”

  “There’s not much to tell, although, there really could have been. Some careless person left my nephew’s door unlocked. We have to keep it locked for his own protection. Without assistance, he stumbles about badly in his efforts to walk.” she explained.

  “Yes. I understand that walking is very difficult for him,” Morris said, recalling what little he had learned of this nameless person in the years he had been coming to Stonegate. Actually, he thought, I’ve only seen this nephew twice – both times were when he was quite ill with pneumonia. And how could she have a nephew when it was accepted by the town that she was an only child? Another Stonegate mystery.

  “I didn’t know he was loo – out,” she continued. “He saw me, and as he always does, he came rushing toward me. He just wanted to hug me, but he stumbled and fell into me, knocking me against that big mirror at the top of the stairs. Didn’t you miss it when you came up?”

  “Now that you mention it, I did. It was a beautiful frame,” he added. Then seriously, “Wilhelmina, that could have been very tragic. You could have fallen down those stairs!”

  “Yes. We both could have. But fortunately, only the mirror did. Mirrors can be replaced, and I wouldn’t even do that except for the fading of the wallpaper.”

  “Was your nephew hurt?”

  “No. I held onto him to keep him from falling, but my face hit that frame pretty hard. Bradley said my shoulder and arm were badly bruised. He wants me to keep it supported for a couple of weeks. No point in paying a doctor if you don’t follow his advice.”

  Mattie, the Stonegate chef and housekeeper, had arrived with the large, ornate, silver tea tray. As she placed it on the marble top table in front of Miss Willy, Morris greeted her and inquired of her health. She assured him that she had never felt better and waited as Wilhelmina checked the tray to her satisfaction before taking her leave.

  “Well, I’m thankful that you were not hurt any more than you are,” Morris said, wondering how on earth she had had the strength to hold onto the nephew, as big and fat, as he recalled the man to be. No doubt she was a very strong woman. “Is your nephew still as big as he was?” he asked, hoping for more conversation on this mysterious and seemingly forbidden subject. He could not understand why she never called him by name – simply referred to him as her nephew.

  “Yes,” she answered. “He loves to eat and, of course, gets absolutely no exercise. Now, shall we have tea?” she asked in a tone that said the subject was closed.

  “Tell me,” she said as she poured the tea, adding the two lumps of sugar she knew he liked. “What have you been up to – visiting the sick in the clinic?”

  “No,” he answered, accepting the fragile cup and saucer, “I’ve been visiting the sick in her home. Della Martin, one of our choir members, has had a short bout of the flu. It seems to be hanging around a little late this year.”

  “Morris Kirkland! You bring me the flu and I shall never forgive you.”

  “Oh, no, Miss Willy! I would never endanger your health. Della is feeling fine now, and expects to be back in church on Sunday.”

  “That’s the family that has the daughter with that unusual red hair and green eyes?”

  “Why, yes,” he answered, wondering how she knew that?

  “Well, don’t look so surprised. You’ve told me about them before. Isn’t Della the one who came up with the idea of using the old worn out choir robes to fashion robes for the children’s choir?”

  “Why, yes. Yes, she is. I’d forgotten that I had mentioned it to you.” But he was certain that he had never mentioned Addie Martin’s red hair and green eyes to Wilhelmina Stone. He would have had no reason to.

  “I’m glad you mentioned the choir robes,” he said. “You know we owe only two more payments on the nursery furnishings. When that’s off our books, we hope to be able to purchase new robes.” Thank you, Lord, he prayed.

  Wilhelmina didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then, with a knowing smile, she said, “Why don’t you come to lunch on Sunday? I’ll have Grant Cutler bring me a check for, oh, let’s say seventy-five hundred. You can pick it up then.”

  Wondering why Cutler instead of B. J. Ryker, her accountant, he knew he had been hoping she’d say ten thousand, but he was grateful for that much. That would buy robes for the choir, the organist, and the man who played the keyboard – even a few more for special programs. “That’s very generous of you,
Miss Willy. And on behalf of the whole congregation, I thank you. They’ll be so happy to be getting new robes. I think they’re planning on a dark gold with a maroon trim.”

  “Just make sure the congregation doesn’t know where the money came from.”

  He smiled knowing he didn’t have to tell them. They knew, and he felt sure that she knew that they did. “Of course, Miss Willy, and I would love to come to lunch. I always look forward to partaking of Mattie’s excellent cooking.”

  “You look forward to anybody’s cooking that keeps you out of restaurants,” she added good naturally. “Now, tell me,” she said as she prepared them a second cup of tea and moving the plate of Mattie’s small, delicate cakes, cookies, and sandwiches closer to him, “what is going on in our small town?”

  “Well, Ester Freeman’s arthritis has gotten so bad she can hardly get around these days.”

  “Stop by the pharmacy and tell Smithson to call Bradley and get her anything at all that will help her.”

  “I’ll do that,” he said.

  “Has that lazy son of hers found himself a job?”

  Morris chuckled. “Miss Willy, Jud Freeman is never going to leave his soap operas and game shows to go to work. And sadly enough, Gladys fears she may be pregnant again.”

  “Oh, good Lord!” she exclaimed with a touch of anger. “Don’t we know anybody we can get to castrate that man?”

  “Miss Willy!” Morris exclaimed.

  “Oh, don’t be so shocked,” she said in exasperation. “There are four children in that house already. I own it, and they live in it rent free. They have nothing to look forward to in life but poverty and more poverty, all because of that man’s lust and laziness. Well, I can tell you this, whether Gladys is or is not pregnant again, that man has begot his last one!”

  “Oh, and just how are you going to accomplish that?” he asked lightly, hoping that she was jesting. There were times when he suspected a side of this woman that he definitely would not like – if she let it be seen – a cunning and devious side. She was a woman who let nothing and nobody stand in her way of getting what she wanted. And whatever scheme she was hatching right now, he wanted no part of.

  Wilhelmina leaned back against the sofa. And looking more serious than he wanted her to, she said, “You know, Morris, one of the earliest shouting matches, I can recall, between my mother and Grandfather Eli, has stuck with me all these years and has served me well.”

  Morris was suddenly very attentive. It was rare that Wilhelmina Stone ever shared bits and pieces of her past, and he didn’t want to miss a word of it. One of these days, perhaps he’d have enough pieces of the puzzle to figure out why she chose a virtual hermit-like existence when, apparently, she could have the whole world.

  “Grandfather Eli was in his wheelchair in the entrance hall downstairs, shaking his fist and yelling at my mother. ‘There’s a lot you’ve got to learn about money, young woman!’ he yelled.

  “I was playing with my dolls on the stairs as mother came running up them. She stopped suddenly and leaned over the rail and yelled back, ‘Really! Well, there’s one thing this woman has already learned – enough money will buy anything from a man’s name to the nails for his coffin!”

  Wilhelmina looked straight at Morris and said solemnly, “It didn’t take long for me to learn that she was right.”

  The woman was dead serious! “Miss Willy, you can’t set yourself up as judge and jury of Jud Freeman or anyone. You can’t interfere in their lives by deciding when, or whether, they will have a child.”

  “Really!” she exclaimed, imitating her own mother. She leaned toward him. “Let me tell you something, Morris Kirkland. Sometimes justice has to be carried out, and not always in a court of law. You just remember that.”

  Morris watched silently as the woman’s face became flushed, her breathing more rapid and wondered just what was going on. He didn’t like this conversation at all. He sensed something more here than the problem of Jud Freeman. He sipped slowly of his tea while neither of them spoke for several moments. There was really nothing more he could say. He felt certain that she would find a way to make sure that this was Gladys Freeman’s last pregnancy, and he didn’t want to know how.

  Finally, Wilhelmina said calmly, “Go by the grocery store and tell Mayfield to start sending two boxes of groceries a week instead of one. Tell him to be sure to add plenty of milk and fresh vegetables, and some fruit. We can’t let Gladys and Ester, or those four children go hungry or get sick.”

  “Of course,” he answered. And in an effort to get the conversation back on a lighter vein, he said, “Nate Johnson is remodeling the furniture store. I guess he feels he has to keep up with your stores at the shopping center.”

  “Yes. He got a loan from the bank.”

  “Oh, and a nephew has come to live with them. A fine looking young man. I’d say about seventeen or eighteen since he’s still in school. I must visit them soon. I might get him interested in our young people’s activities. They don’t have a program for young people where the Johnson’s go to worship at the Forrest Lane Community Center.

  “And Susan Beard had her baby this morning. She called me about 3 A.M. I went over and carried her to the clinic and stayed until it was over to make sure she and the baby were doing fine. She had a seven pound boy.”

  “Her husband has not come back?” Wilhelmina asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” Morris answered. “When a man takes off with another man’s wife, especially when the woman is several years older than the man, he doesn’t usually come back.”

  “Now, how do you know that?”

  “You mean that Harold ran off with Effie Sommers? That’s simple. They disappeared at the same time, and it was common knowledge that they were being seen together a lot. They didn’t make any secret of it.”

  “Men!” Wilhelmina said, shaking her head in exasperation. “We’ll have to arrange enough income for Susan to get by on until she can go back to work.”

  “Miss Willy, that is so good of you. Oh, and that reminds me of a humorous incident that happened this morning.” He took note of Wilhelmina setting back to get comfortable in anticipation of one of his anecdotes about the town’s people, which he knew she enjoyed so much. “After leaving the clinic, I stopped at the City Cafe for a late breakfast. Well, as usual, Buddy Stumps and Cleo Epps were there having their mid-morning coffee and doughnuts.”

  “Ah, the lesser half of our town’s police force,” Wilhelmina put in.

  “Yes,” Morris agreed, “and I’ve told you of their zeal for law and order. They stop ever stranger they see within two blocks of the Town Square to check their identification and find out what they’re doing in town.”

  “It makes Riverbend seem so hospitable, don’t you think?”

  Morris chuckled. “Well, Cleo looked out the window and said to Buddy, ‘There’s one we’d better check out.’ That didn’t please Buddy at all. He said he wasn’t through with his doughnuts. Then Cleo told him if he ate one more, the City Council would have to raise taxes to have him new uniforms made. Buddy got real miffed at that, but he got up, dropped some change on the counter, and they left. They were back in about twenty minutes, and about as flustered as those two can get,” Morris continued as he sat his cup and saucer back on the tea tray.

  “Cleo claimed that a man was standing in front of the dry cleaners when he first saw him, but when they went out the door, he wasn’t there. So they assumed he had gone inside the cleaners. But when they checked with Hazel, she said no one had come in, as she had just opened up. Well, neither business on either side of the cleaner’s had opened up yet, so he couldn’t have gone into one of them. And if he had walked to either corner of the block, they claimed they would have seen him.

  “Then Buddy mumbled that he didn’t think there had been a man in the first place. This made Cleo mad, and they started arguing. So, as I was about to leave, I figured I’d better put an end to their squabble. I told Buddy that there most cert
ainly had been a man standing in front of the cleaners. I had to walk past him as I crossed the street from the parking lot. I even said good morning to him. He just nodded his head.

  “So Buddy said, ‘In that case, Hazel is either hiding him, or he just up and disappeared – just vanished in thin air.’ Then Cleo said, ‘Well, if we’ve got a stranger lurking about that can make himself disappear, then I ’spect we’d better go looking for him.’

  “I said I didn’t know about that, but I did know the man had been there when I came in. You couldn’t help but notice a person with bright red hair and green eyes like his. The only other person I’ve ever seen with similar coloring is Ben and Della Martin’s daughter, Addie.”

  The color completely drained from Wilhelmina Stone’s face, and the fragile, antique cup and saucer that she was about to replace onto the silver tray, fell from her trembling hand, hitting the marble top of the table, shattering into pieces. She didn’t seem to notice, as she stared with open mouth at the Reverend Morris Kirkland.

  Chapter Three

  Ben Martin was just coming awake when the soft music, Della’s music for morning lovers, came on from the bedside clock radio that he had giver her for Christmas several years before. He didn’t want to awaken Della yet. These precious minutes each morning started his day off just right. He would awaken her in his own good time, and in his own way, if she didn’t awaken first. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and turned toward his wife of almost seventeen years.

  She’d be thirty-three soon, and she didn’t look any older than Addie, and was a whole lot prettier, fuller, rounder, softer. Her shoulder length, honey blond hair partially covered her sleeping face. He lay still, enjoying the quiet peace of their lives and drinking in the beauty of the woman he loved, and marveling, as he often did, that a gangly, frightened, sixteen year old girl had become this beautiful woman, and that she belonged to him. He resisted kissing the long, thick, brown lashes that lay curled on her cheeks. Not yet, he thought, she might awaken. The sheet partially covered her. Della didn’t like heavy covers while she slept. One long, smooth, shapely leg was fully exposed where her gown had ridden up. He gently, softly ran his right hand over the curve of her hip and down the exposed thigh to her inner thigh under the sheer gown. Relishing every inch of her, his desire mounting as he caressed her body. His hand found the tangled pubic hair, then flowed lovingly over her soft belly and on up to the warm, firm flesh of her breasts that seemed to fill his large hand more than usual, his desire quickening to an aching hardness.