Chapter Ten
It took a few seconds for Banks’s words to sink in.
“My aunt and Miles David Easton were going to be married?”
“They were.”
“Where would she have even met him?” Kit was having a hard time wrapping her head around it.
“Easton had a classmate from Princeton who lived in Galeana, a town about five miles from here. Whenever Miles visited his friend, they would come to the camp for a day of fishing. On one of those trips, he met Maxine.” Banks shrugged.
“When Easton left his friend’s, he came back to the camp and rented a cabin and stayed the rest of the summer.
I understand he wrote several of his novels in that same cabin over the next few years. ”
“This is so crazy. He was a bestselling novelist and had book and movie deals. And wouldn’t he have been older than her?”
“Six years older, yes.” He drank a bit of his coffee, which he’d seemed to have forgotten about once Kit brought out the picture of Maxine.
“But he wasn’t a bestselling novelist when they first met.
He’d had a book or two published, but he wasn’t well known.
His real fame didn’t come until after he’d died. ”
“You said he always stayed in the same cabin. Do you know which one? I’m going to have to see it.”
“It was cabin eleven. But I’m afraid it burned down years ago.”
Kit fell silent for a moment, then asked, “Did Maxine burn it down?”
“I never asked her, and as far as I know, she never admitted to it. But the cabin was—is—gone. It wasn’t rebuilt.”
“He wouldn’t have lived here year-round. Where was he when he wasn’t here?”
“Maxine said he was from some small town outside of Chicago. He’d take whatever he’d written over the summer and go back to his apartment and finish the work and edit it and so forth. By the time his third book was published, he was being sent on a few book tours.”
“This is just crazy. I’ve read several of his books. The Acorn was the first book of his I got from the library, and I loved it.”
“That’s one of the books he wrote at camp.
If you read the dedication, you’ll see your aunt’s name.
After they met, he dedicated every one of his books to her.
Miles said he did his best work here, that he could write his first drafts like a demon but had to leave to polish it and work with his editor. No cell phones back then, no internet.”
“Wait—wasn’t there some story going around years ago about his last book going missing before it could be published? Or do I have him confused with another writer from that era?”
“It had been reported that the manuscript was with Miles on the plane. It was never found.”
“Do you think someone stole it? Maybe found it in the wreckage and—I don’t know, passed it off as his or her own? It could have been published by someone else and we’d never know.”
“I suppose anything is possible, Kit. But the simplest answer is usually the truth. I think it’s more likely that it burned in the fire that resulted from the crash. There were no survivors, as I recall.”
“Does her romance with Easton have anything at all to do with the schism between my mother and my aunt?”
Banks looked uncomfortable, averting his eyes. “Not specifically.”
“It either does or it doesn’t,” Kit said pointedly.
“I told you I would not discuss that situation with you, even tangentially.”
“So that means yes, because otherwise you’d have said no or you don’t know.”
“Interpret that as you will.”
“Sorry. I don’t mean to put you on the spot.”
Banks laughed. “Of course you do. Or you would, if you thought it would get me to tell you what you want to hear. But I can’t. Really. I gave my word, Kit.”
“I understand. I do. It’s just so frustrating not knowing what could have happened that would have been so serious that it would start this animosity that my mother would take to her grave. It just isn’t like her. My mother was a very loving and good person.”
“She was, yes.”
“Was she in love with Miles, too? My mother?”
“Oh, I seriously doubt it. She and your father were high school sweethearts, together from the time they were fifteen years old. She never had eyes for anyone except Ed. They were already married by the time Miles entered the picture.”
“That doesn’t mean she might not have been tempted.” Kit glanced down at the photo on the table between Banks and her. “I mean, he must have been more than just a pretty face to win over someone like Maxine.”
“He was an interesting young man, and as we’ve established, very bright, a very talented writer.”
“So you met him.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.”
“What was he like?”
“Pleasant enough fellow, though he impressed me as being a bit of an introvert. Never had a lot to say, but he was always cordial enough.”
“What did my grandparents think of him, I wonder?”
“Maxine said that at first they passed him off as a lightweight. A city guy without substance. They thought he was just pretending to be a serious writer to get Maxine’s attention.
It irritated the devil out of her, though.
She knew what she knew. Though I understand he could fly-fish with the best of them, and he was a good hiker, so he wasn’t completely a weakling. ”
From the corner of her eye, Kit caught Banks’s teasing expression. No doubt Miles Easton had proven the extent of his outdoor skills to Maxine’s parents’ satisfaction. “What did the people in town think of him?”
Banks shook his head. “I don’t know that many of them got to know him very well. As I said, he wasn’t very outgoing. He’d go into town with Maxine for dinner or whatnot, but most of the time he spent in the cabin writing.”
“It’s strange that Maxine would fall for someone like that. She seems to have been the outgoing type.”
“Oh, she was. He not so much, but you know, they say opposites attract. I’ve heard many writers are introverts to some degree. The only time I ever saw him appear animated in any way was when I saw him interact with Maxine. He was clearly fascinated by her, obviously head over heels in love.”
“With the way the press follows celebrities around, I’m surprised the people in Tolerance weren’t curious enough about him to stalk the camp.”
“Oh, he wasn’t a celebrity back then. I don’t know how many people in town even knew he was a published author.
His fame came after his death. He had several novels he’d written long before he was published.
After the success of The Acorn, his early works were in demand.
Today, it might have been different. What with his exceptionally good looks, several books made into movies, and the mystery surrounding his last novel having gone missing, not to mention his love affair with a beautiful woman at a sporting camp tucked into Maine’s backwoods, well, that’s a novel in itself. ”
Kit picked up her phone and went to her favorite search engine and typed in Miles David Easton. When the page opened, she scanned it quickly.
“There’s nothing here about Maxine. Wouldn’t any story about him have at least mentioned her?”
“I don’t know that their relationship was widely known, other than her family and some of us locals. Maxine wasn’t the type to brag about anything or to discuss her private life with anyone.”
“She discussed it with you.”
“Yes, well, that’s different.”
Kit raised a questioning eyebrow.
“We’d been friends for a very long time, Kit, plus I was her lawyer. We knew each other well, but she was always one to keep her cards close to her vest. Although his agent knew about Maxine. She mentioned that he’d contacted her once, after Miles’s death.”
“Do you know who that was? The agent?”
“I have his card somewhere in Maxine’s file.”
“Did she say why he contacted her?”
“Among other things, he wanted to know if Miles had left any unpublished works with her.”
“Had he?”
“That would have been between Miles and Maxine, I suppose.”
Kit looked down at her half-eaten burger, her appetite gone. She picked up the fork and poked at her salad. “Their story makes me so sad. I’m assuming she never married.”
“She did not. Miles was the love of her life, and for her, no one could ever measure up to him, or to what they’d had, so why bother.”
“So she just stayed here at camp and ran the place until she died. Strange to think of all that beauty and vitality hidden back here in the woods.”
Banks chuckled. “She didn’t exactly hide away.
She was very much involved in Tolerance.
After all, she’d grown up here. I will say that after Miles died, she became a little—let’s say, not always quite as amicable as she’d been.
She’d grown a little . . . testy. Maxine could bite your head off one minute and hold your hand the next.
She was never the same after Miles died.
I think the losses she had endured became too much for her to bear at times. ”
“Losses? Plural?”
He hesitated briefly. “Oh, you know. Miles. The loss of her parents shortly before Miles died. And then there was the . . . estrangement with Barbie. She was alone at the camp after Barbie and your father left. I suspect that’s one of the reasons she held on to the camp.”
“The camp was her home. The place where she’d been happy with Miles, with her family.” Kit nodded slowly. “I understand why she stayed.”
On the table, Banks’s phone began to vibrate. He glanced at the screen, then picked it up and answered the call. “Yes, Elsie. Yes, I know. I’m with her now. No, apparently not. Thank you.”
He smiled. “Elsie was wondering if she should be having a panic attack because I have a two-thirty appointment and I’m not there.
I probably should have given her a call.
She worries about me. Afraid I’m going to be found face down in the snow one day between here and the office.
” His smile broadened. “She just wanted to make sure that today wasn’t that day. ”
He put his phone in his pocket and leaned forward, appearing about to stand. “I hope I answered all your questions. All the ones I could, that is.”
“Well, as much as I want to know all about my mother and her feud with Maxine, I have to admire your sense of loyalty. Maxine knew what she was doing when she swore you to secrecy about, well, about whatever it was.”
Banks stood and put on his overcoat. “Even if she hadn’t, it’s a story I’d be loath to tell, but perhaps you’ll figure it out while you’re here. Stop in anytime, Kit. I’m always around. Always happy to help.”
Kit watched him stroll to the cash register, where he exchanged a few words with Mary Gail. He paid his bill, then turned to nod in Kit’s direction as he settled his hat on his head and wrapped his scarf around his neck, then disappeared through the door into the gray afternoon.
A story he’d be loath to tell? Kit couldn’t even imagine what that might be.
Perhaps you’ll figure it out.
Fat chance. How do you solve a mystery when you have no clues?