Chapter 17 #2
She turned and walked toward the rear of the house without hesitation, without acknowledging the shattered plate, and without giving any indication that the last five minutes had affected her in the slightest. She moved through the hallway and out of sight with the unhurried pace of a woman walking through her own home because it was still hers to walk through.
Dale and Cal stared after her, and then at each other.
“This isn’t over,” Dale said, his voice low and strained. “The court will decide first thing in the morning. And when they do, you’ll have no say in what happens to her.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Dale straightened his shirt, collected whatever remained of his dignity, and walked out the front door without another word.
The door closed behind him. It wasn’t long before the muffled sound of his car starting in the drive could be heard through the heavy wood.
Gravel sprayed, and the engine noise faded down the lane until it was swallowed by the distance and the trees.
Cal stood in the center of the foyer for a moment, his breathing slightly elevated, his hands still curled at his sides.
Then he exhaled, long and slow, and the tension in his frame released by degrees.
It was as if he were only now realizing that strangers were in the house and had witnessed the verbal argument.
“I apologize for that.” He extended his hand. “Cal Brennan. I should have introduced myself before getting into it with Dale, but my manners tend to leave me when that man is in the room.”
“Brooklyn Sloane.” Brook shook his hand.
His grip was firm and warm, the hand of a man who still used them for work despite being retired.
“And this is Bobby Nowacki, though he goes by Bit. It’s our understanding you were close to Nestor Ellingham.
Would you mind speaking with me for a few minutes? ”
“Of course.” Cal removed his glasses and cleaned them on the hem of his flannel shirt. His hands were steady, but Brook noticed a slight tremor in his left hand, which he corrected by pressing the lens harder against the fabric. “Nestor was my closest friend. I’d like to help in any way I can.”
“Let me first say that I was sorry to hear about your sister.”
Cal’s hands stilled on the glasses. He put them back on slowly and regarded Brook with an expression that had shifted from open cooperation to something more guarded.
“How do you know about Margaret?”
“My colleagues and I have been interviewing several people close to the Ellingham family over the past two days. Your sister’s name came up in the context of your friendship with Nestor and your connection to his research.”
Cal nodded slowly, and the guardedness eased, though it didn’t disappear entirely.
He moved to the bench near the front door and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees.
The bench was the same one Sheriff Gentry had occupied the night before, and something about the way Cal settled into it suggested a man who had sat in this foyer many times before.
“Losing Margaret devastated my family. She was ten years younger than me, and I always thought of her as someone I was supposed to protect. When she got sick, I couldn’t do anything except sit in a waiting room and hope.
That’s part of why Nestor’s work meant so much to me.
He was trying to find an answer to the very thing that took her.
Whether it was ovarian, pancreatic, colon, or any other form of cancer.
He believed plants held the key, and I believed in him. ”
“Do you know of anyone who would have wanted to put a stop to his research?”
“No, of course not.”
“What about personally?” Brook wanted to cover as much ground as possible before he brought their discussion to an end. “Did Nestor have any enemies?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Tell me about your relationship with Gwenyth.”
The change in Cal’s expression was immediate and unguarded. The tension from the confrontation with Dale dissolved entirely, replaced by something softer and unmistakably genuine.
“She’s become like a daughter to me,” Cal said as the tension eased from his shoulders.
“After Nestor disappeared, I couldn’t just walk away from her.
She was eighteen years old, alone on this property, and nobody was stepping up.
Dale certainly wasn’t. So, I started coming by.
Bringing her books, checking on the house, making sure she was eating.
Porter had the same instincts, of course.
And then over the years, it became routine, and the routine became something deeper.
I care about that girl very much, and I can’t stand by and let Dale remove her from her home just so he can line his pockets. ”
“What are your thoughts on her mental state?”
Cal ran a hand through his hair and sighed in what Brook took as concern.
“Gwenyth has been through more than any one person should have to endure. Losing her mother as a child, losing her father under circumstances that nobody understood, and then spending thirty years essentially alone on this property. Porter did the best he could, but it’s taken a toll, and I’d be lying if I said her condition hasn’t concerned me.
She has episodes. Confusion, withdrawal, periods where she isn’t entirely present.
I’ve tried to get her seen by a physician, but I can’t get anyone to come out to the estate.
And Owen’s vitamins can only do so much.
Unfortunately, nobody makes house calls anymore, and Gwenyth won’t leave the grounds. ”
He glanced toward the back of the house, where Gwenyth had disappeared around the staircase. The late-afternoon light was now angling through the foyer windows, casting the stone columns of the portico in long shadows that fell across the entrance hall.
“Porter and I have done the best we could for her, but I’ll be honest with you, Ms. Sloane. It wasn’t always enough. And now with Porter gone…” Cal’s voice caught, just briefly, before he steadied it. “It’ll all be for naught if Dale wins that hearing tomorrow.”
“I appreciate your candor, Mr. Brennan.”
“Cal, please.” He gave her a faint smile that carried more exhaustion than warmth. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to speak with Gwenyth about hiring a lawyer. If Dale is filing for an emergency hearing in the morning, she needs representation.”
“Of course.”
Cal nodded to Brook, then to Bit, and walked toward the rear of the house.
His footsteps receded down the hallway, and a moment later, Brook heard the back door open and close off the kitchen.
She remained in the foyer, surrounded by the fragments of Gwenyth’s shattered plate, and turned over everything Cal Brennan had just given her.
The grief for his sister. The devotion to Gwenyth.
The hostility toward Dale. The decades of regular visits to an isolated estate where a woman was slowly deteriorating under circumstances that no one had fully examined.
Cal Brennan presented as a man who had spent his life caring for the people Nestor left behind, yet Brook had been doing this long enough to know that the people who presented the cleanest were the ones who warranted the closest look.