Chapter Eight
Over the next two weeks, Cassie called in a lot of favors from her peers, worked long hours examining and logging the earliest Pelopson records, and had a lot of very satisfying sex. Manny seemed preternaturally attuned to her body, able to tell when she was ready to climax almost before she was. They hadn’t had sex in the attic again—by silent mutual agreement, sex during work hours was off the table—but getting eaten out on the table in the guesthouse was amazing, and so was riding him in the chair by her fireplace, and so was mutual masturbation in her bathtub, which was, after all, sized for two.
They couldn’t do anything very athletic in the bed cave, so they mostly avoided it. And Manny seemed to prefer his own bed, since he didn’t sleep with her again.
Once or twice, Cassie had considered asking him to stay the night. There’d been something so cozy about waking up beside him that first morning, something very sweet about the way he’d breathed against her neck while she wrapped her arms around him.
But no expectations, no commitments—that was the deal. He was keeping to his part of it, and she needed to stick to hers.
If only the work was as satisfying as her sex life. She’d started in the 1830s and moved forward in time, and in the process she’d actually uncovered quite a few unsavory secrets. The Pelopsons, it seemed, had been a contentious lot. There were a lot of shady land deals, and quite a few lawsuits that seemed more like petty feuding with their neighbors than a genuine need for arbitration. More concerning were the family members who just dropped out of the picture. There were traces of cousins who’d apparently quarreled with the various patriarchs and been more or less expelled from the family. They existed in records up to 1870 and 1903, respectively, and then there was nothing, not even a death certificate.
Prohibition had, of course, been an interesting time for wineries. Many had gone under, or banked on future liberty and consigned their grapes for raisins while they waited for Prohibition to lift. Tantalus had survived by being one of the very few vineyards allowed to produce wine for religious or cultural purposes, and Cassie suspected that representatives of local and federal government might have ignored some late-night visits from shady characters. Some of the ledgers from the 20s were missing altogether, and the rest were scanty on detail.
She’d also found what she was positive were secret pregnancies. Two younger daughters, a generation apart, had been sent away to “convalescent retreats,” returned six months later, and been married quietly off. The diaries of one girl’s mother, Niobe, had recorded her fears about her daughter’s condition, and concluded with the flat statement, “She leaves tomorrow. My husband thinks it best.” The diary had made for tragic reading, even with the distance of years. Cassie had carefully turned each dry leaf of paper with her gloved hands, and blinked the tears away behind her glasses.
But all of it had happened long ago, and Manny’s greatest fear, that his ancestors might have enslaved people, didn’t seem to be borne out by the documentation. Not, Cassie concluded tartly, because of any great virtue in the Pelopsons. She thought they would have been just as likely as most people of their race and class to profit from slavery. But they’d arrived after the abolition movement had become stronger in the North, and she couldn’t find any glimpse of enslaved people working on the estate, or investment in southern plantations or traders.
And while Aerope had been angry and upset about the cavalier treatment of Niobe’s daughter, she didn’t think that would have tipped her husband over the edge.
“Maybe I’m sending you on a wild goose chase,” she told Cassie one Friday afternoon. Cassie had mentioned a new historical novel that she wanted to read, and Aerope had surprised her by bringing it triumphantly home from the library, her own name on the hold slip.
“I’m sorry,” Cassie said. “Maybe I just don’t know enough to recognize it, whatever it is.”
“Or maybe there’s nothing there,” Aerope said. She wiped impatiently at the tears glimmering in her eyes. “And I was only hurting myself in search for an explanation. An awful secret would at least be a reason, do you understand?”
“I think I do,” Cassie said. “I like certainty and order. Even if something terrible happens, knowing why is a little bit of comfort.”
“Exactly.” Aerope sighed. “I did think… Yesterday, when you told me about that poor girl. I thought, perhaps it was something like that, but closer to the present. But Arthur never had a sister. And Perry Pelopson wasn’t the best father, but his wife was very family oriented. Damia wouldn’t have let him send her daughter away.”
They sat there for a moment longer.
“Did you find anything interesting today?” Aerope asked.
“Oh! Yes. A pocketknife. It’s marked T. P. and I think the design on this sheath is Art Deco, so it might have been Theophilus Pelopson’s.” Cassie held up her hand, which sported a bandage on the thumb. “Whoever it belonged to took good care of it. The catch and blade were oiled before it was put in storage, and it’s still pretty sharp.”
“Tell Manny about that,” Aerope advised. “It’s exactly the sort of thing he wants for the carriage house project.”
“I will.”
Silence fell again. Cassie was wondering if she should gently ask Aerope to go when the older woman cleared her throat.
“I must apologize again for how I treated you when you first arrived.”
“It’s all right,” Cassie said. She’d said it a few times, meaning it more on each occasion. Aerope had been trying so hard to make up for it.
“You’re really very good at this. And you and Manny seem to be getting along rather well.”
“Um. I’d rather not…discuss any of that with his mother.”
“As his mother, I’m merely looking out for his wellbeing. Given his past experience.”
Cassie felt a spark of curiosity. What past experience? The ex-girlfriend Manny had referred to once? From his tone, she’d been the ex. But if Cassie asked, Aerope would take it as permission to pry further into her own intentions, and she didn’t want to share. The plan was to leave and remember Manny as a fond interlude, but she couldn’t see Aerope taking that well.
“Let’s change the topic,” she said brightly. “Do you like historical fiction yourself?”
“Yes,” Aerope said. “But I’d rather discuss my son’s future.”
“I wouldn’t,” Cassie said firmly, and waited for the backlash.
But Aerope sat there for a moment, looking more pleased than not, and said, “Well! I’d better let you get back to work. Unless you want to read?” She nodded at the book she’d brought. “I must say I’d find it hard to resist. But perhaps you’re more disciplined.”
Cassie shook her head and got back to work. She had a feeling there was a double meaning in that.
Simon at the Midas Bank was probably just following procedure when it came to his loan application, but it felt to Manny like the man was moving at a snail’s pace. So far, he’d resisted the urge to call and hurry him up, but as they inched closer to spring, the desire to just casually drop in on the man increased.
In the meantime, he was endearing himself to Jim and frustrating the hell out of Theo by trying to learn more about the vineyard business.
“Now, the shotgun,” Manny said, and glanced at the weapon leaning casually against the wall.
“It’s for the birds,” Jim said patiently. “The noise scares them off the fruit.” He grinned at Manny. “It’s even organic.”
Manny grinned back. “I mostly meant that we should put it in a locker or something. Having it in the office could be a safety issue, given that we don’t even lock the door half the time.”
“It’s not loaded,” Jim said. “And the shells are locked up in my desk. But I see your point.”
“Okay, so next thing was that list of equipment we put together. Have you had a chance to think about how we should prioritize?”
“New destemmer,” Jim said promptly, and scratched his beard. “And in frost season I’m basically up at 2am every night to check the temperature and get the burners on with the hands. I’m probably getting a little old for it and it costs a lot in labor.”
“So these new cold-sensitive automatic heaters would be better?”
“Sure, if we could afford them.”
“I’ll run the numbers,” Manny said, and turned as Theo came in.
“Aren’t you two friendly?” Theo said.
Jim clapped Manny on the shoulder. “He’s picking it up pretty fast.”
“Watch out, next step is telling you how to do your job,” Theo said, but it lacked some of his recent bite. “Soil has thawed, Jim, and some of the vines on the top field are bleeding.”
Jim looked at Manny expectantly.
“Uh, the bleeding is sap coming from the pruning sites. That means bud break is soon, right?” Manny said.
Jim nodded. “And that means all hands on deck to protect the new growth from frost. You sure you can’t get those new heaters this season?”
“I wish I could,” Manny said, though he was pretty sure Jim was joking. “Maybe next year, if the cellar door sales are anything like last summer’s.”
Theo puffed out his chest. “I can practically guarantee it.”
“We could think about expanding the cellar door space a little,” Manny said tentatively, but he wasn’t surprised when Theo bristled.
“What have I told you about messing with a good thing?” he demanded.
“Theo, can you put the shotgun in the truck locker?” Jim said unexpectedly.
Theo frowned at him. “Why? It’s fine in your office.”
Jim shrugged. “If we’re getting more hands in, I don’t want those kids to get their hands on it. They steal road signs. Might well think it funny to take a gun too, and then we’ve got a problem.”
“Oh, fine, I’ll do it now,” Theo said, and Jim winked at Manny behind his back. “Manny, come and help me lay down that mulch we made.”
Laying down the mulch took much longer than Manny had expected, and there wasn’t time to go through the rest of his list with Jim after. He headed back to the house, and passed Aerope, who was just leaving.
“Are you off, Mom?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m going grocery shopping in Weeping Rock. And I’m having dinner with Beverley afterwards, so you’ll have the house to yourself for hours.” She gave him a significant look, one that was both knowing and encouraging.
“Uh-huh,” he said.
“Cassie’s still upstairs,” she added. “You should go and say hello.”
“Okay,” Manny said, and escaped before she could start winking and nudging him. This was much better than open warfare, but his mother’s eagerness was still disconcerting.
On the other hand, it might be nice to take advantage of his mother’s absence and his own bed. True, his bedroom was less cozy than Cassie’s, but it had the significant benefit of headroom. He mounted the stairs in good spirits, with a fair turn of speed, but stopped dead as soon as he saw Cassie.
She was sitting at her table outside the attic, archive boxes and various records piled around her, staring at a green suede journal.
She was too still, and her face was too serious.
His stomach dropped. “You found it,” he said, and she raised her eyes.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I think I did.”
Cassie watched the emotions pass over Manny’s face—surprise, concern, wary interest. He settled on the last and pulled a chair over. “Okay. What did you find?”
“I can take you through it, if you like. It might be best if I go step by step instead of starting from my tentative conclusions.”
“Yes,” Manny said. “Yes, please, start from the beginning.” He was looking a little shaky.
Cassie adopted her most professional tone and leaned over the records, hoping to give him some relief in her matter-of-fact account. “Your mom gave me the idea,” she said. “She mentioned that perhaps I was looking at the wrong end of history, so I looked at the records closer to home, the things that might have directly affected your dad because he was alive when they happened.”
“Right,” Manny said. “That makes sense.”
“So I started with my spreadsheet, just to get an idea of what there was, and that’s where I started finding the gaps. Your grandmother Damia was an archivist’s dream. She kept meticulous photo albums, one for every year, from the day she married your grandfather until the year she died. But there are two photo albums missing, from 1970 and 1973.”
“She could have been too busy that year. Or they got lost.”
“Very possible, but it made me think about that record book you found in the carriage house. I found the receipt for those in a pile of business expenses. Your grandfather ordered three dozen of those green suede notebooks in 1959.”
“You mentioned that earlier.”
“Yes.” She pointed at two boxes. “So why were there only eighteen in the archives? He recorded the vineyard records in the front and personal expenses in the back, from 1960 to 1977. I thought he’d run out, because he used a different kind each year after that, but if he had eighteen more, why not use them until they switched to typed records?”
She picked up the notebook. “This is the one you found. That makes nineteen in total, which also doesn’t make sense, because he ordered thirty-six. So I looked at it more closely. There are no vineyard records in this one. It’s just what looks like personal expenses. Clothes, school fees, a payment for a summer camp.”
“Stuff for kids,” Manny said, with rising dread. “But… Not the stuff for my dad and Theo he’d already recorded in the other books. The expenses he didn’t mind keeping with the vineyard records.”
“Yes,” Cassie said. “And when I went through page by page, I found this.” She flipped to a point three quarters through the notebook, and showed him the page where the photo of the boy had been carefully taped in.
It was obviously a school photo, one cut from a grid of small wallet sized prints. The boy was sitting against a faded blue background and wore a white button-up shirt with a dark blue blazer, embroidered with a crest. He had a fluffy blond bowl cut, and a wide, crooked-tooth smile.
Cassie had carefully sliced one of the ancient pieces of tape, and now she flipped the photo over to show Manny the back.
The back had been inscribed in careful, round letters - not a child’s writing, but someone who had taken their printing lessons seriously as a child. It read Chris, 6th Grade, 1972. The dot of the i was a tiny heart.
“That’s not my grandfather’s writing,” Manny said.
“Or your grandmother’s,” Cassie said. “Or anyone else I could find samples for from that era.”
“Right,” Manny said. “Anything else?”
“Just this,” Cassie said, and pulled out the photo that had been loose in the box on her very first day. The box that had been half-empty, although she was only now able to appreciate the significance of that. She pointed at the cluster of children on the dock of Lake Lydia, with the two adults in the center, and handed Manny a magnifying glass from her archive kit. “Do you recognize anyone in this picture?”
Manny squinted. “That’s my grandfather, Perry, and my grandmother, Damia. My dad is there. He must be about fifteen, I guess, which would make Theo fourteen. There’s Theo, off to the side.” His voice went stiff. “And there’s Chris, right in front of my grandfather.” He put the magnifying glass down. “Okay. So. What does this add up to?”
Cassie’s heart was breaking for him, because he was much too smart to deny what was coming next. “I don’t think we could draw any definite conclusions yet, but—”
“My grandfather had another kid,” Manny said. “I have another uncle. What else could it mean?”
“He could have been sponsoring Chris for another reason. Maybe he was a family member, but not that closely related. A descendant of one of your lost great-great-aunts.”
“I don’t think Granddad would have cared about that tenuous a connection,” Manny said. “But eighteen missing notebooks. That would be eighteen years of expenses, supporting a child from birth to adulthood. And on top of that, we’ve got a school photo of a twelve-year-old with a strong family resemblance, who then shows up at one of my Granddad’s lake days for disadvantaged youth. Maybe more than one, if more than one photo album is missing. That’s suggestive, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would say it’s suggestive. But not conclusive.”
“And this is everything you found? A notebook and a loose photo?”
“That’s all I’ve found this afternoon,” Cassie said. “There might be more, if I dig. But I think your dad went digging before me. This box, the one with the photo in it, that was half-empty. Most of the other boxes are crammed so full the lids barely fit. I think the missing photo albums were in there, and they were taken out. This photo might have fallen out then.”
“Dad found out he might have another little brother.” Manny dropped his head into his hands. “Shit. I still don’t think he would have… But that might have done it. I don’t know.”
Cassie abandoned her pretense of professionalism. Without even thinking about it, she was walking out of her chair and hugging him. “I’m sorry,” she said fiercely. “Manny, I’m so sorry.”
“Do we know who Chris is? Do you think Dad looked for him?”
“I don’t know if he could have found him with this. It’s a common first name. And without a last name or a solid date of birth, I don’t have much to work with. We’ve got an approximate birth year, though, and that’s not nothing. If his mother was local, there could be birth records. But I was thinking that if your dad did find more evidence, maybe he put it somewhere in his office, or another storage area.”
“Right,” Manny said, looking more invigorated. “Right, he could have done that. The office is a dump. I’ve barely looked at anything except the vineyard records or the carriage house blueprints since I got here. Or maybe there was more in the carriage house—that filing cabinet didn’t have anything else in it, but there are still hiding places in there. I’ll take a good look when Augie and I finish clearing it next weekend.” He paused. “Don’t tell Mom or Theo yet,” he said, with sudden decision. “And I won’t tell Augie, either.”
“I got the impression your mother would welcome a little clarity,” Cassie said cautiously.
Manny waved at the paltry evidence she’d gathered. “You said it yourself, this isn’t conclusive. I want to give her clarity, if I can.”
Cassie nodded. “Your call, boss,” she said, hoping to make him smile.
He didn’t, not quite, but his eyes crinkled at the corners, and he looked ruefully at her. “And here I was planning to ask if you wanted to check out my bedroom while my mother’s in town.”
“With an actual bed?” Cassie said, just a little too eagerly.
“Yeah, that was my thinking too,” Manny admitted. He looked at the notebook. “For some reason, I’m not really feeling it at the moment.”
“Wow, weird,” Cassie said, and kissed his cheek. “In that case, I’ve got a couple of hours free. Want me to help you turn the office upside down?”
Manny’s eyes softened. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to,” Cassie said, and found herself meaning it. Even if it wasn’t for the mystery, she would have wanted to help Manny. He was taking so many blows, and he just kept going, trying to make things better. Even more impressively, he didn’t ignore the impact of those blows. He wasn’t shoving his emotional reactions down, so they could surface in some huge unpredictable explosion later. He let himself feel what he felt about the problems, and then he started looking for solutions.
That was a guy you could trust. That was a guy you could rely on.
That might be, if you were absolutely honest with yourself, a guy you could develop inconvenient feelings for.
Not that she would, of course.
It would be such a terrible idea.