“And she treated it like a real job, too,” said Jill.
“A real job?” I was puzzled.
“She was conscientious about keeping regular hours 23 and everything. She never ditched it even when it conflicted with something we wanted her to do.”
“But it
They both laughed at that. “Honey, she’s a Shay. Even though Mrs. Shay doesn’t own Shay Furniture, whatever Jonna got paid was just pin money for her.”
Still smiling, Jill pushed the swoop of hair back from her face and looped it behind her ear. “Of course, Jonna was something of a tightwad, so I’m sure she cashed every paycheck.”
“Tightwad?” Their bright chatter made me feel thick-tongued as I felt my way toward an unwelcome growing comprehension.
“Not to speak ill of the dead, but she almost never picked up the check if she could help it. She wouldn’t treat herself to shopping trips to New York unless one of us paid for the hotel, and even then, she would limit herself to one or two good pieces instead of buying something trendy just for the fun of it.”
Trying to be fair, Lou said, “I think she was worried about Cal’s future. She never talked about the terms of her trust fund, so we don’t know how it was set up and whether or not it could transfer to the next generation.”
She saw my blank look. “I don’t mean to throw off on Dwight—and you were right: he still is one fine-looking man!—but she didn’t think he’d be able to give Cal all the advantages she could. I mean, his people are just farmers, aren’t they?”
That did it. It was crystal clear that they were unaware that Jonna had no huge funds at her disposal, that she treated her job at the Morrow House like a real job because it
WINTER’S CHILD
very much at that point. Ashamed of her sister, ashamed to tell her oldest friends that she was living on the very edge of her finances? To let them think that Pam was an alcoholic and that she herself was a penny-pinching tightwad rather than tell the truth? Afraid she’d lose face if—
Wait a damn second here. Lose face?
“In her papers,” I said. “There was something about a class gift?”
They both nodded and explained that it had all been Jonna’s idea. Even though the old high school had closed eighteen years ago and was now apartments for the elderly, it still held their memories and their history and it was part of Shaysville’s History on the Square. Jonna had proposed that their class rebuild the old clock tower that used to stand on the front left side of the building.
“Clock tower?”
“It was built from the same local stones, two stories high with four tall slender arches and a clock that faced the commons,” said Lou. “About a year or two after they built the new high school and closed ours, a drunk driver crashed a dump truck into it and knocked it flat. Smashed the clock beyond repair and left the whole front looking unbalanced.”
“So when Jonna suggested that our whole class chip in to replace it,” said Jill, taking up the story, “we got estimates and it was a lot higher than we hoped even though we could get the stones at cost from another old SHS
alumnus. I mean, some of our classmates still work in the furniture factory and Jonna was afraid it would be too much of a hardship.”
“But then Jill and I suggested that the three of us chip 23 in five thousand each for the clock and that would make the tower itself more affordable.”
“Plus,” Jill said candidly, “we’d get to put our names on the brass plaque for donating the clock separately.”
“Jonna was afraid the others might think we were being too pushy, but the rest of the committee said that nobody would object to memorializing the Three Musketeers that way. We put it to a class vote, and they were right.”
“I could have told Jonna that,” said Jill, her huge emerald flashing as she straightened her collar. “If we gave the clock, it would mean fifteen thousand less that they’d have to contribute, so of course they agreed to it.”
C H A P T E R
25
“Jonna wasn’t worried that someone would smash her face,” I told Dwight and the two agents when I caught up with them at the Morrow House. “She cried because she was going to
I repeated what Jonna’s friends had told me about their ambitious plan for a class gift and how it had mush- roomed out of her control.
“All these years and she never let them know that she didn’t have any money of her own.” That was the part that was hardest for me to understand. “When I put it to Mrs. Shay, she broke down and admitted it.”
“Did she cry?” Dwight asked cynically.
“Buckets. She’s on a complete guilt trip right now, wondering if Jonna would still be alive if she had agreed to advance her the money.” I looked up at the three men.
