Читать книгу Buried Treasure - Jack B. Downs - Страница 17

10 / House of Secrets

The Saturday morning looked bright outside Dylan’s window, but he had a grayness in his head that wouldn’t shake loose. Things had been good with just Nana, James, and him. Then his dad came home. Now Mr. Thompson was dead and they might be moving away. How many more Saturday mornings would he get to sleep in, in this bed, in his room?

Dylan lifted his arms slowly over his head and stared at the ceiling. His ceiling. Directly above him, his latest craft, the Cessna 150, hung by a thin piece of sewing thread, angled in a shallow descent. He and his dad had collaborated on the 150. Dylan had never bothered to put on the little decals that came with the model airplane kit. He thought they just made the models look cheap. Like they were store-bought, made-in-Japan.

But when Dylan was nearly complete with the 150, his father had appeared at the foot of the stairs to Dylan’s bedroom with several small bottles of modeling paints and a couple of small brushes. Dylan waved Sam up the steep stairs.

“Thought you might want to jazz up the fuselage a little,” his dad had said, handing Dylan the paints and brushes. “Never seen one fly overhead that had quite that dry-putty look to it.”

Dylan had held up one of the small glass bottles, inspecting it with a dubious expression. “Think you might be able to give me a hand?”

Almost as if this recollection had summoned Sam, there was a light tap at the door. Dylan called, “Come ahead.” His father clumped up the stairs and took a seat at Dylan’s desk.

“Happy Fourth of July, son.” His father glanced over to James’s bed, and Dylan had a feeling there was another reason Sam had wanted to come up.

“Your brother out and about already?”

“I guess he is.”

Sam rubbed his chin. “You know what time he left out of here this morning?”

“I didn’t hear him leave. So, no.”

It was not unusual for James to be gone when Dylan woke up. But it was just a week or so ago that Dylan started out of sleep at some noise, in time to see James slipping out the bedroom window. He almost spoke, but the way James turned and slid the screen back down, he was clearly trying to move quiet. Dylan was a little hurt. James and he, as two boys without either a mother or a father, had had a tight bond as long as he could remember. It felt like James was growing away from him.

“See you downstairs?” Dylan turned to go.

“Right behind you,” said Sam.

Sam and Dylan tramped into the kitchen just as Nana set down their plates. A stack of pancakes sat in the middle of the table, along with a bowl of scrambled eggs and a small plate of toast.

“I’ll be going over to Mr. Thompson’s house this morning, if you want to come along.” Sam forked up several pancakes and passed the plate to Dylan.

“I’d like to have a look, sure.”

Nana bustled in and took a seat on the window side of the table. “That poor man. My guess is you’ll find his house neat as a pin.” She sipped her coffee, glancing over her shoulder.

“Me and that lawyer fellow walked through it quick.” Sam scooped eggs out onto his plate, set the bowl in front of Dylan, and reached for the pepper. “He even said we may just want to leave the furniture in case somebody needs that too.”

Nana nodded.

Sam glanced at her. “Do you want to see if there’s anything you want?”

She shook her head vigorously before he finished his sentence. “I’ll just keep the memory of a good man. There’s nothing we need from the house, I don’t suspect.” Dylan knew that was the end of that subject.

After they finished eating, Dylan and his father rose. Sam gave Nana a light kiss and squeeze, thanked her for the meal, and turned to Dylan.

“Ready?”

“I’ll be along in just a minute,” Dylan said, avoiding his father’s eyes.

Sam stepped out the front door. Nana drew the plug from the bottom of the sink and dried her hands on the towel hanging from the bar on the stove front. She turned to Dylan. He was surprised they were nearly the same height.

“I know things are changing, maybe a little fast for you.” Nana pursed her lips. “It sounds silly, I know. But home is where your heart is. It’s not a square of land. It’s where you’re happy.”

Dylan stared at Nana. He felt an odd discomfort at Nana’s words. She was not talking to him as she would a child. Another change that felt somehow…wrong. He had a disorienting sense of being mistaken for someone else. He also had a feeling that Nana was not simply who he’d always imagined her to be: the elderly woman in the constant monochromatic dress who ran the affairs of the house. Nana was someone with wishes of her own. That also made him uneasy.

She patted his arm, glancing down. “You are going to tear that cap asunder, the way you work it, boy. And don’t fret so. He’s made some mistakes, but he is your daddy, and he won’t let anything bad happen.”

They stepped out into a quiet, radiant morning, the sun still low and the day cool, but with the promise of a baking later. A summer Saturday was the best, because it held mystery and promise. It made him giddy sometimes, to think the day was a thinking thing, quietly planning how to surprise him.

Nash Street was beginning to stir. Mr. Geise, two doors down, was out collecting dead twigs from his yard. His lawn always reminded Dylan of a buzz haircut. It was thick and clipped tight to the terrain, like the hair of the Kelly boys at school. Mr. Geise was as much a fixture on his lawn as the little jockey with the lantern, which he repainted every year. His father waved at Mr. Geise, who lifted a stick in return. When Mrs. Geise was alive, she had been the one who tended to the bushes and flower groupings in the yard. Only occasionally would the husband be seen, lugging some plant ball to this or that corner, and digging another hole to plant another bush. After Mrs. Geise passed, he had taken over tending the yard. This apparently endeared him to Nana. At least once a week she would shuffle down the walk with a dinner dish draped in a red cloth for Mr. Geise.

“I feel bad for the poor man,” she’d say. “The men should go first. Did you ever see a man try to care for himself?”

Together, his father and he crossed Nash Street and strode up the walk. Sam dug in his pocket and extracted a small white envelope. He shook a key from it. Unlocking the door, he eased it open, stepping soft over the threshold.

Sam bent to pick up mail strewn on the floor from the mail slot. They stood together in a neat foyer, with an old, polished entry table in front of them. A small pile of mail rested on the table next to a dish with several small rings of keys. Some of the pieces of mail had little white notepaper clipped to them. These Sam kept on top of the pile as he added the mail from the floor.

Dylan followed a step behind as they entered a well-appointed sitting room on their left. A dark wingbacked chair and matching footstool sat catty-corner to a stuffed sofa, both kneeing up to an ash coffee table. The room had the look of a doctor’s waiting room without the magazines. There were no pictures on the walls, except for an oil of a fruit bowl above the sofa.

Dylan turned to watch his father, who glanced briefly at the furnishings and then moved a slow eye across the walls and ceiling. Sam eyed the carpet under the coffee table, and the wood floors, critically. He also stepped to the window, unlatched it, and lifted it. It gave a brief resistance, as if it had not been opened in some time.

Sam and Dylan moved through the house room by room. Sam spent some time in the kitchen, turning the stove and oven on and off, and opening and examining the icebox. He also checked the walls, doors, and windows as he went, and occasionally made a note on the little envelope, with the stub of a pencil from his shirt pocket.

Upstairs, they glanced into Mr. Thompson’s bedroom, and a smaller bedroom that was nearly empty. Everything was spotless.

“It probably needs a fresh coat of paint, though the walls are in good shape. A little plastering in the hallway upstairs. You ever have occasion to paint? Or should I assume based on your model planes that you don’t have much experience?”

Dylan turned to see his father grinning at him.

“Well, Nana had James and me try to paint her porch last summer. But somehow…” his voice trailed off.

“So that’s your work?” Sam grinned again. “If you want, I can show you some of how it gets done, and there may even be a little money to pay you.”

“That would be fine.” Dylan followed Sam down the second-floor hall. “Nana ended up finishing the porch, but I don’t think she knew more than James about painting. And James couldn’t tell one end of the brush from the other.”

Sam flipped on a light switch and leaned into a shadowed room at the back of the upstairs hall. The brick chimney jutted out into the small space and the room was barely bigger than the bathroom downstairs. It must have served as an office, dominated by an old desk with a rolling chair tucked into the leg well. A dark four-drawer filing cabinet stood next to the desk. Sam turned to go, then reconsidered and stepped into the room.

“I feel like an intruder, but I guess we’ll have to decide what to do with all this.” Sam drew open the top drawer of the filing cabinet.

“I guess Mr. Thompson trusted you to do right by it.” Dylan flipped open a dusty thin cardboard box on a low table by the door. It looked like it hadn’t been touched in years.

“Watch your way with Elmore’s things,” Sam reproached, then sighed. “I guess it won’t matter a lot. I still can’t fathom what provoked him.”

A glint caught Dylan’s attention. “Hey! Look at this!”

He stepped back to show Sam the cluttered display of medals, pinned to a velvet backing. Sam stepped over and fingered one of the larger medals, attached to red, white, and blue ribbon.

“The Bronze Star. These must all be from Double U Double U Two,” said Sam. “Mr. Thompson would have been too old for Korea.”

“What’s the Bronze Star?”

“It says here, on the back: ‘for Heroic or Meritorious Achievement.’ I remember him mentioning being in France once, during the war.” Sam set the medal back in the box.

“How come he never marched at Memorial Day? I thought all the old soldiers are in the parade.” Dylan ran his fingers over another ribbon, attached to a heart-shaped pendant. “Say, do you think this is from a girl?”

His father picked up the medal gently. “This is the Purple Heart. See George Washington there? It’s for soldiers who are wounded or killed in battle. I wonder that’s what his limp came from.”

Sam turned back to the open filing cabinet and Dylan pulled the chair out slowly. He had never seen a chair on wheels before. He sat down slow and gasped when it started to turn.

Sam grinned. “It won’t bite you. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. Swivel chair. They are pretty common in offices of big executive types.” Dylan spun the chair a little, surprised at how quiet and smooth it was.

“Hmm. Tax forms for the last few years. Copies of the bills. Well, what is this?”

Dylan looked up at the change in Sam’s tone. “What did you find?”

“It’s a file with your brother’s name,” Sam’s voice was puzzlement and wonder.

“What would Mr. Thompson want with a file on James? What’s in it?”

Sam drew the folder out slow, then stopped, and eased it back so it was only halfway out. The folder was thick and worn. Sam cocked his head to examine the contents as he riffled what looked like old newspaper clippings, attached to note paper.

“Um, it’s not James. It’s your brother David. Looks like the articles that they put in the Daily Times back then. But why would…?” Dylan studied Sam’s face as his voice trailed off. Sam drew the folder out, glanced at Dylan, and laid the file open on top of the cabinet.

“He made notes. I wonder why. Says here, ‘Check when Godfrey Winter left town.’ Godfrey was my shift mate down at the plant when I was laid off. He got moved to nights, but then he had to leave out of Salisbury to go be with his folks. Nice enough fella—”

They both turned at the sound of Nana’s voice, calling from downstairs.

“Sam! You had better come now. It’s James!”

Dylan emerged from Mr. Thompson’s house just ahead of his dad. Nana stood on the porch, her apron front splotched where she’d wiped her hands hurriedly. Sam started to speak, then saw the Crane Ridge Township police car idling in front of their house. Two uniformed police stood talking at the front of the car. A shadowy figure was hunched in the back seat. Dylan guessed it was James.

Dylan started down the sidewalk.

“Child, why don’t you give me a quick tour around Mr. Thompson’s kitchen? We’ll see if there’s anything we want for a keepsake.”

Dylan looked at Nana, puzzled.

“There might be something we want to remember Elmore by. He was good to us,” she said, her eyes fixed on the scene across the street.

Dylan glanced again at the police car. He reckoned he would learn soon enough what mischief his brother had gotten into. He looked at his father, who was rubbing his chin, his other hand on his hip, frowning. Gazing across the street, his dad said, “I’ll see you back at the house shortly, mother.” He hitched up his pants and headed down the sidewalk.

***

Dylan raced up the stairs to his room. At the top landing, he stopped at the sight of James sitting on one tucked leg on the sill of the dormer window. James turned, his chin resting on his fist, and gave Dylan a cold look. He swiveled his gaze back out the window. Before James had turned away, Dylan saw something in his eyes that was frightening. It was a kind of sadness, almost like grief. Dylan realized he had missed whatever James had said.

“Pardon?”

“You and Sam must have had quite a chat about things.”

Dylan stood by the stair top, trying to remember what he’d come for, and puzzled by the statement.

“Me and Sam? He invited me to go over to Mr. Thompson’s with him. Did you know Mr. Thompson was in the war? A soldier?”

“Didn’t know. Don’t care. What I want to know is what you told Sam about me sneaking out.” James’s head swung slow to face Dylan. Dylan saw that James’s eyes were red and watery. This was the scariest. James never cried. Dylan took a step back. He tried to look thoughtful, but what he felt was a fear. He didn’t trust himself not to shake, so he leaned against his desk. Dylan didn’t ever remember being afraid of his older brother before.

“Is that why the police came for you?”

James swiveled to turn his back on Dylan, gazing down on Nash Street. He didn’t answer.

“He asked what time you left out this morning. That’s all.”

James turned back, his jaw set, lips thin. His gaze burned. “What did you tell him?”

“I said I didn’t know!” Dylan heard his voice slip on the last word, like an inexperienced skater.

James’s look softened a fraction. “They don’t arrest people for sneaking out. Something happened down to Wilson’s Store last night. They think I had something to do with it. But I didn’t.”

Dylan waited. Finally, he said, “All right. I believe you. But why does anybody think it was you?”

“I picked up something I shouldn’t have, and it makes it look bad for me. That’s all.”

“Well,” Dylan said lamely, “I’m sure it will all work out okay. Going to the fireworks tonight?”

James flashed a brief smile and turned back to the window. “One way or another, I’ll be there,” he said quietly.