Chapter Seventeen Ashley #2
A BELL ON the door jingled as they entered the office, a cramped room that smelled like wet wool and mildew.
There were a couple of battered armchairs, a gas fireplace, and a framed cross-stitch on the wall that read MEET AS STRANGERS, LEAVE AS FRIENDS.
Above it was a watercolor painting of a deer, but the proportions were all wrong: the neck too thick, the antlers impossibly large.
The big black eyes seemed to take up half its face.
It reminded Ashley of drawings she’d seen of aliens.
“Help you?” The fortysomething woman in an oversized flannel shirt behind the desk spoke in a tone that suggested the very last thing she wanted to do was help them.
She had the radio tuned to a country station and was holding a paperback book of crossword puzzles and a pen.
She looked from Ashley to Malcolm, keeping her eyes on Mal.
“Yes, hi, we have a reservation for two rooms,” Ash said. “The name is Ashley Flanders.”
The woman kept looking at Malcolm even though it was Ashley who’d spoken. She wondered if she should repeat herself or perhaps she should speak louder. Ashley watched the clerk’s red, chapped hands as she pawed through some paperwork on the desk.
“Here it is. Flanders. We’ve got your rooms all set. Two nights. I just need a credit card and driver’s license.”
Ash handed them over.
The woman looked down, studying the license and copying Ashley’s name and address.
“What brings you to Boone’s Ferry?” she asked.
“We had family from here,” Ash said.
“And we just inherited a house,” Mal added. He just couldn’t help himself.
“Oh, really?” The woman looked up at them, interest piqued. She looked back down at the registration. “Flanders. Can’t say I know any Flanderses here in Boone’s Ferry.”
“Our great-grandfather was Thomas Endicott, the town doctor,” Mal said. “Died from the flu back in 1919.”
Her face seemed to tighten. “Terrible thing.” The woman shook her head. “Flu hit this area hard.”
“So I understand,” Ashley said. “Did you have family here back then?”
“Me? No. My husband’s people were here. His great-grandfather, he had that big old farm you passed when you drove into town. Right at the base of the mountain.”
Ashley thought of the run-down farmhouse, the leaning barn. The horse.
“Back in the day, the St. James place was the biggest farm in town. My husband and his brothers sold it off years ago, though. The Hollands own it now and I don’t envy ’em. Tough to be a farmer these days.”
She handed back Ashley’s credit card and license. “All set,” she said. “And here are your keys.” They were brass keys on green plastic tags, DEER RUN MOTEL in white letters. Rooms 1 and 2.
Ash wondered which room her mother had stayed in.
“Have you owned the motel long?” Ashley asked, trying to prolong the conversation, see what information the woman was willing to give up.
“Going on twenty-five years now.”
“I think our mother stayed here once,” Ash said. “About two years ago.” She studiously avoided looking in Malcolm’s direction.
“Is that so?” The woman shuffled the papers on her desk.
“I was wondering if you might remember her? Louise Flanders?” Ashley reached into her purse, pulled out the photo she’d brought along: Mom at the lake the summer before she died, squinting a little in the sun, smiling.
The woman looked blankly at the photo, then up at Ashley. “Can’t say I do.”
“You don’t have records of guests? A logbook or anything?” Ashley asked, glancing pointedly at the book the clerk had written Ash’s name in.
“From two years ago?” The woman seemed to be stifling a laugh. “We don’t keep anything that long, hon.”
“Got it,” Malcolm broke in, smiling at the clerk. “Thank you. We’ll go get settled. Let you get back to your puzzles. Doing them in pen like that… that takes skill. You must be good.”
“You should see all the pages where I’ve had to scribble things out. What a mess!” She smiled up at him. “I’m Liz, by the way. Liz St. James. You need anything while you’re here, you let me or my husband, Jack, know. He’s here in the evenings. Works up at the factory during the day.”
“Great, thanks. Is there a Wi-Fi password?” Ashley asked.
“No internet. Have cable TV, though. Thirty-one channels.” She said this with an air of pride. “I’m partial to the baking shows. The cakes they make… works of art. I can make a cake, a good one too. I won a blue ribbon one year for my angel food.”
Mal smiled. “I love angel food cake.”
“The trick”—Liz leaned toward him with a conspiratorial smile—“is letting the eggs warm up. Cold egg whites don’t froth up right.”
“Well, Ash, seems you’ve got some competition here.” But he kept looking at Liz with his most charming smile.
“Anyhoo… don’t want to hold you two up. The pub’s about the only place in town to get food. The general store makes sandwiches and now they’ve got a pizza oven, so that’s an option too. If you need Wi-Fi, the library’s the place to get it. When it’s working, that is.”
“The pub sounds great,” Malcolm said.
“Could you tell us how to find the town hall?” Ashley asked. She knew that was the first place her mom would have gone to do genealogy research.
“Don’t have one.”
“Really?” Ash couldn’t keep the suspicion and disbelief out of her voice. When she’d done research on Boone’s Ferry and looked at maps, she was sure there had been a town hall.
“You could go see Lorelei Prentice,” Liz said.
“She’s our town clerk. Her office is in her house.
Go back across the bridge and take your first left on Hook Meadow Street—it’s just past the clothespin factory.
Lorelei’s place is the fourth house on the right, pink with white trim.
You can’t miss it. ’Course, on a day like this, she may not be in.
She’s a painter. Does lovely watercolors.
She did this one here,” Liz said, pointing to the deer painting.
“Very nice,” Ashley lied, looking at the painting. She noticed now that there was an ominous reflection in the animal’s huge black bulbous eyes: the gray silhouette of a man with a rifle. Down in the lower right corner, it said Opening Day—Lorelei Prentice.