The Cradle Robber. E. Joan Sims
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Copyright Information
Copyright © 2007 by E. Joan Sims.
All rights reserved.
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
www.wildsidepress.com
Dedication
To my grandparents
Ada Atherton Mohon and Hyla Mohon
Thank you for all those wonderous hours.
And thanks, Granpapa, for gifting me with your wicked sense of humor!
Chapter One
It was still not quite the middle of May, but the temperature had been hovering in the mid-to-upper eighties for the past week. This morning had started out a bit cooler than the others, and encouraged by the dewy freshness in the air, I set out for a brisk walk carrying a picnic basket and a sweater. The cotton cardigan that was a necessity at seven had been discarded by nine and the picnic basket had been emptied before eleven.
The early morning breeze had been sweet and just strong enough to keep the insects at bay, but shortly after noon the wind died down, and June bugs, their beautiful iridescent bodies shining like emeralds, began to dive dangerously close to my resting place beneath the hickory nut tree.
Curious dragonflies hovered over my face, daring me to reach up and touch their fragile wings. Scores of dainty yellow butterflies, looking for all the world like real pats of butter, swirled around me and the remains of my picnic lunch.
A hairy little leg tickled the back of my sweaty neck, but I was too lazy to move. After a few moments, the tiny green grasshopper traversed my shoulder and hopped on the red and white calico square of the quilt underneath my cheek. For a full minute, the two of us stared into our various eyes trying to size each other up. He won when I blinked first. Waggling a slender antenna in farewell, he hopped off into the grass with a triumphant bounce.
I heard the sound of a plane in the distance and raised up on an elbow to peer through half-closed eyes in the direction of the airport that bordered our back field a half mile away. Twenty years ago, the “powers that be” had forced my father to sell them the land where the Lakeland County Airport now proudly boasted its one runway. We hadn’t been happy about it at the time, and even though it was used only occasionally, Mother and I still resented having our quiet afternoons disturbed by noisy little airplanes practicing takeoffs and landings.
The single engine aircraft circled slowly above the end of the runway in preparation for landing. The plane waggled its wings, and for one brief moment I thought I saw a something fall to the ground. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and blinked against the bright sunlight. When I looked again, all I could see was a solitary buzzard wheeling in slow, indolent circles over the distant field.
I plopped back down on the quilt and tried to shut out the harsh sound of the engine as the plane landed and taxied to the other end of the runway. When the blessed peace and quiet finally returned, so did the insects.
“I guess you’re all trying to get me to leave,” I mumbled drowsily. “I should have brought Aggie. She’d chase you away.”
Aggie was my daughter’s foul-tempered Lasa Apso. Cassandra had talked her grandmother into letting Agatha Christie become a part of our little family here on Meadowdale Farm three years ago. Our lives haven’t been the same since.
Aggie is a soft cottonball of a dog with the teeth of a piranha. I had the scars to prove it. The last time she bit me I had to get a tetanus shot. Cassandra was coming home tomorrow. I didn’t know what her post-graduation plans were, but I was going to make sure they included taking Aggie with her wherever she went.
I tried to put the possibility of Cassie’s moving away out of my mind. I had missed her terribly during the four years she had spent at Emory University—and Atlanta was close enough for us to spend most vacations and holidays together. What would I do if she did something crazy like I did and move to South America? I knew one thing for sure, I couldn’t argue against it.
My parents had let me marry Raphael Luis DeLeon twenty-two years ago and then move to San Romero without a squawk because they knew how very much in love we were. They trusted Rafe to take care of me, and a year later, our baby daughter. What none of us counted on was his disappearing into the jungle when Cassie was eight. By then, San Romero was torn by a bloody revolution, and Cassie and I barely escaped to New York with nothing but the clothes on our backs.
Without hesitation, my best friend from college took me under her wing. She gave us a home for the first few months and even helped me find a way to support myself. Pamela is a literary agent. She convinced me to write down the bedtime stories I told Cassie each night. From those stories, we created a best-selling series of children’s books. With the income from my writing, Cassie and I were able to shape a decent, if not completely content, existence in Manhattan. When America’s children finally got fed up with my stories, I started writing murder mysteries under the nom de plume of Leonard Paisley, hard-boiled detective. “Leonard” was a great success, and soon I was financially stable enough to move back to my hometown in Kentucky. Life suddenly became a real pleasure again.
I loved Meadowdale farm. It had been in my family for generations. I loved the rich brown dirt that squished up between my bare toes as I walked, the smell of the honeysuckle blooming haphazardly on the back fence, and the buttery yellow Anjou pears in my grandfather’s orchard. I was convinced that the sun shone brighter from a sky more beautifully blue over our hundred acres of rolling fields and woods than anywhere else on God’s earth.
My mother’s house was over one hundred and fifty years old. It had originally been a log cabin. Succeeding lords of the manor had built on room after room until it was a strange hodge-podge of various roofs and walls. I loved every capricious inch of it. If I could summon up enough energy, I would gather up my picnic debris, trudge over the fields to the big screened-in back porch, and collapse in the chaise lounge for the rest of my nap. Maybe Mother would have some fresh sweet tea in the fridge. The ice had long ago melted in my thermos, leaving nothing but unappetizing flecks of lemon pulp floating on a sea of tepid brown.
A bumbling black carpenter bee bombarded my right ear and forced me to my knees. I swayed for a moment in the heat and glare of the sun, then stumbled to my feet. I was ready for air-conditioning and a nice cool shower with some of that fancy lavender-scented soap Cassie gave me for my birthday.
Chapter Two
My shower was not the luxuriously indulgent affair I had envisioned. I barely had time to dry off, much less put on lipstick or float face powder over the freckles on my nose. The only thing I could say for myself was that I was clean and fresh when Mother packed me into her new Lincoln Continental and headed for town. She decided that our larders needed replenishing and insisted that she needed my knowledge of Cassie’s likes and dislikes to make sure of pleasing her returning granddaughter’s palate. I argued that she was well aware that Cassie ate almost everything except celery and oysters, but to no avail.
Mother is a good driver, even if she does get distracted on occasion. My grandfather Howard taught her how to drive his vintage 1939 Ford coupe when she was eleven. Five years later, when she got her license, he gave her the car, which by then was only four years shy of twice her age. Our family album has almost as many pictures of “Mr. Peabody” as it does of the non-motorized members of our clan.
She babied the old car through college and into the fifth year of her marriage to my father. When it was apparent that Mr. Peabody was on his last cylinder, my father bought his bride her first Continental to ease the loss of a beloved and faithful friend.
Cassie or I would have been inconsolable. Mother was ecstatic. She has sported a new Lincoln every five years since then. The latest one—baby blue with white leather seats, was a mere four months old when the ramshackle, mud-spattered farm truck broadsided us at the corner of Harrison and Oak streets.
“Damn it, Mother! Didn’t you see that stop sign?”
“I most certainly did! But I stopped twice back there