Chapter Six #2
Kit came to the Y in the road Banks had told her to watch for.
Up a slight embankment, the sign heralding the Camp in the Meadows was pockmarked by BBs and buckshot, the letters of each word neatly outlined on their outer edges with carefully placed bullet holes.
She paused, wanting to take a long look, but the car behind her blasted its horn, its driver apparently unnerved by her having stopped in the middle of the road.
Kit rolled down her window and waved at the driver in a sort of apology, then made the right turn onto the snow-covered lane that was barely wide enough for two cars and marked with tire tracks.
She drove forward in the tracks until she arrived at a clearing, to the right of which stood a rambling farmhouse painted a shade of faded red similar to the barn she’d passed on the way into Tolerance.
The house stood silent and solemn in the pale light of the afternoon.
A loose shutter banged a random beat against the wooden siding, keeping time with the rhythm of the occasional wind gusts.
Kit lowered the driver’s-side window to take it in, panorama-style, left to right, her gaze settling on a large hawk that sat on a low-lying branch of a bare oak.
The bird watched her closely, then apparently decided Kit was unimportant and, dismissing her, shifted its head to watch the tree line. Nothing to see here.
Kit got out of the car and leaned back against it. This was the house her ancestors had built, where they’d lived and loved and fought, raised children and watched them leave home to marry or go to school or seek their fortunes elsewhere. It was the house her mother had grown up in.
A wide front porch went from one side of the house to the other, left to right.
The door was painted black and the windows in the front were bracketed by shutters.
Tall brick chimneys rose from three sides of the house, and another in the very center of what might have been the original section of the building, one that extended off the left side.
A long rectangle of an addition stuck off the back of the house like the tongue of a sassy toddler.
The wind died down, and the only sound she heard was the breeze setting the dried flower heads of an overgrown hydrangea swaying into each other. A moment later, even they had stilled.
Kit stood in the near silence, and the old saying so quiet you could have heard a pin drop came to her mind.
Across from the parking lot was the lake, the middle of which was under a thin layer of ice.
As she walked toward it, she could hear the water quietly lapping at the shore.
A pier extended fifty feet or so into the lake, and tied to one of the moorings was a rowboat half in and half out of the water, as if it had sprung a leak and just sunk on its knees into the shallows, where it lay frozen.
Cautiously, Kit walked to the end of the pier, an eye on a board here and there that looked rotted, and took it all in.
The sudden shrill call of a crow startled her, and she backed away from the edge of the pier.
Her sudden movement caused several ducks that had taken shelter under the dock to shoot out and skitter across the ice to the other side of the lake.
Across the lake, tall trees, spiny and bald, grew close to the shoreline, their naked branches reaching toward the pale Maine sky.
It would be beautiful here in autumn, she thought as she turned her back on the lake and walked the length of the pier, avoiding the soft spots in the wood she’d noticed on her walk out.
Too bad she wouldn’t be here to enjoy the show of color.
One last look over her shoulder and she headed toward the house. Why put it off any longer?
She fitted the key into the lock and pushed open the door, holding her breath.
Who knew what she might find here? Intrigued yet fearful, no small amount hopeful, Kit stepped into a square room that she suspected served as the reception area for the campers.
The house was dark but a wall switch turned on the large overhead light that hung from the center of the ceiling.
A very large desk—old as the house, by the looks of it—stood to the right of the door, its surface covered with piles of paper.
To the left was an inglenook, the seats in the surround covered by green cushions that had clearly seen better days.
Grateful that the electricity had remained on, she peered into a long room on the right.
She took three steps in, then stopped, mesmerized.
The room was packed with furniture, all draped in white sheets.
“Holy crap.”
She entered the room, lifting a sheet here and another there. Several pieces—a sofa and a chair—she left uncovered.
“Holy crap,” she said again, her head spinning.
“Yeah, it’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” A voice from behind her caused her to jump.
A young man wearing a plaid flannel shirt, jeans, and worn leather boots stood in the doorway. He had unruly light-brown hair and cheeks red from the cold air. Abby’s remark about meeting a lumberjack in flannel and denim came to mind, though she was certain Abby hadn’t been envisioning a teenager.
“Oh, sorry I startled you. I’m Liam Anderson. You met with Mom and my granddad earlier. That is, if you’re Ms. Porterfield. If you’re not, I’m going to have to ask you for some ID.”
“I am. Kit Porterfield, that is. I have ID.” She patted her side for her bag, then realized she’d left it in the car.
“Nah, I was kidding. I know who you are. My mom described you and said you were on your way out here. I thought I’d uncover some of the furniture before you arrived, but I was down at the cabins.” He took a few steps in her direction. “You look a little thunderstruck.”
“Right. Deer in the headlights, I’m sure. I just never imagined all this.” She stopped at a stack of boxes. “Any idea what’s in these?”
“There were old magazines and newspapers, but Greta tossed them. She left the boxes in case you need to pack up some stuff.”
“Remind me to thank Greta.”
“So my granddad said you never met Maxine.”
“No. I never did. Did you know her?”
“Oh, sure. Everyone around these parts knew her. I worked here from the time I was twelve until—” He paused.
“Well, I guess until today. Everyone worked at the camp at one time or another. I have the keys for the cabins, by the way. I’m happy to turn them over to you.
But if you’d like me to keep an eye on them . . .”
Kit didn’t have to think twice. “I would, thank you, if it isn’t too much trouble. Yes, hold on to them. I’ll be wanting to check them out at some point before I leave, but for now, it’s fine if you want to hold on to them.”
“It’s no trouble. And if there are any wild critters—raccoons, whatever—in there, I might be better equipped to deal with them.” He hastened to add, “No offense, Ms. Porterfield.”
She laughed. “None taken. I’m happy to leave the critter-dealings to you.”
“Yeah, there was a family of raccoons in cabin six a few weeks ago. And I like to check in every now and then to make sure there isn’t anyone living in any of them, you know. Someone who might have moved in to hunt or to fish before the season opened or poach sap.”
“Poach sap?”
“Tap the maple trees for sap. For maple syrup. We caught someone up here a few weeks ago. Bugger figured no one would know, but I happened to be up here to check to see if anyone was ice fishing. Caught the guy red-handed. Guy wasn’t even from town.”
“What did you do?”
“I called my dad. He’s the chief of police. He chewed the guy out, took him in, and let him spend a night in the holding cell, then chewed him out again and told him he wasn’t welcome back in Tolerance.”
“Sounds like something a sheriff in the Wild West would say.”
Liam laughed. “Yeah, that’s my dad.”
“Did you find any of the cabins occupied?”
“Not really. A couple of days ago, someone was in the one farthest down on this side of the lake. I put his stuff out on the porch and locked the door. I guess he got the message, ’cause his gear is gone and the cabin is still locked.”
“You didn’t call the police that time?”
“Nah. By the time the police got up here, the guy’d be gone anyway,” he said confidently. “I mean, that’s always worked in the past.”
“Does that happen a lot? People breaking in the cabins, staying there?”
He shrugged. “Not so much.”
“Are your parents okay with you doing this?” He looked awfully young to be playing security guard.
“Oh, sure. I’ve been checking the camp for Maxine for the past couple of years.
Sometimes a guy will just come up to ice fish for a few days.
It’s a private lake, so it hasn’t been fished out.
Not many people except locals know about it, so chances are, it’s going to be a local.
This is the first year that we’ve had someone poaching sap, though.
” He looked around the front hall. “I can help you get rid of whatever boxes you don’t use and take the cardboard to the recycling place.
And if there’s other stuff you want to throw out, I can get a dumpster up here if it looks like you’re going to need one. ”
Liam paused. “That could get expensive, though. They charge you by the day. I’m pretty sure it’s going to take you a week or two, maybe three, so we should probably wait on ordering the dumpster.
Plus it would be tough getting one of those up here in the snow.
Not impossible, but easier if we wait a bit.
There will probably be some things you’ll want to donate, stuff that’s still good that you don’t want to take back to Pennsylvania with you.
Furniture and stuff like that. I’m sure my mom knows where to take large donations or help you sell some if you want. ”
“Oh, that would be great. Thank you, Liam.” Kit made a mental note to thank Caroline when she saw her.
“Anything else you need?” He stood in the doorway, backlit by a fading sun, the rays slanting through the windows in the entry. Kit tried to judge his age but couldn’t. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty, she suspected.
“Nothing I can think of right now, but thanks. I appreciate your help.”
“You have the office number, so call if you think of anything,” he said as he backed out of the room.
“Will do.”
He smiled and turned awkwardly, his hand on the doorknob. “You might want to keep an eye on the time, Ms. Porterfield. There are no streetlights from here to the main road, and it gets really dark out here. The roads are hard to follow if you’re not familiar with them.”
“Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll be leaving in a few. Thanks again, Liam.”
She heard the front door open.
“Don’t you have school?” she called after him.
“Spring break,” he called back, and closed the door softly behind him.
“Not exactly my idea of spring, but okay,” she muttered.
Kit followed the hall to a swinging door and pushed it open into the kitchen.
There were signs of life here, a few dishes in the old porcelain sink, an empty pot and a teakettle on the stove.
Kit stared around the room, one end to the other, taking it all in.
This was obviously the family kitchen. Two doors stood closed on the right side of the room.
One she found to be locked. Behind the other were the steps leading down to the basement.
A wooden table with four chairs was set under a window, and she crossed the old linoleum floor and took a seat.
She pushed aside the curtains to look out on the backyard, where a rope looped over the branch of a large maple.
Had the grandfather she’d never met tossed that rope over a tree branch to make a swing for his young daughters?
Kit tried to picture Barbara pushing her younger sister, Maxine, on the swing, but couldn’t bring up an image of either of them.
She’d seen only a few photos of her mother as a baby, and none of her as a child.
And of course, she had no clue what Maxine might have looked like.
Kit had always been organized to the point where her spouse and kids had made fun of her persistent list making.
She’d found it the only certain way to keep track of her priorities.
She sat for a moment longer, then stood, a goal so clear in her mind, she didn’t need to write it down: Somewhere in this house, surely there must be photos of the Meadows family, parents and children, and she would find them before she left Tolerance.
She paused, then mentally added the goal that had sent her here: Discover what had driven the sisters apart.
Instinct told her that finding the family photos would be a lot easier than finding the cause of the feud, but one way or another, she was going to get to the bottom of it before she left for home.