didn’t believe a word of it. And here I’d thought the ability to detect lies was a Mom Skill.
“Actually, I have no idea where the money came from,” Bick said. “Agnes never gave out more information than necessary.”
Was there such a thing as architect/client confidentiality? As with attorneys and priests? I’d never heard of it, but there were many things I didn’t know and even more things I didn’t understand—golf handicapping, for one.
Bick pulled out a lower desk drawer and propped his foot up. The look projected comfort and ease, but I detected small vertical lines between his eyebrows, lines that hadn’t been there earlier. “So,” he said, “have you heard anything? I talked to Mack Vogel last Thursday, and he said the board was going to bring it to a vote this week.”
“Bring what to vote?”
“The project.” He spoke slowly, as if to a child. “The Tarver Elementary addition, remember it?”
Ah. So this was why I’d been invited into the inner sanctum on such short notice. Old Bick wanted to continue to be the company rainmaker, and he was feeling parched. “You said you’re not here for your design skills, but did you design the Tarver addition?”
Bick took the pipe out of his mouth and howled with laughter. “Me? Design that? Even
“You don’t like it?”
He snorted out twin plumes of smoke; a small dragon in disgust. “Not me, not Browne, and definitely not Browne. That thing is a travesty.”
My mouth opened and closed a few times before I found the traction to get going. “Your firm didn’t design it?”
Another twin snort. “We provided three preliminary designs, but Agnes rejected them all. She had her own ideas.”
I smiled. Sounded like Agnes.
“We told her we’d design anything she wanted, but who knew she’d want something that atrocious? Couldn’t change her mind an inch.” He shrugged. “But who’s going to turn away a paying client? A school job with no bond issue to pass? Project sent from heaven.” He made a face. “And except for the execrable taste of one particular person, it would have been.”
“Where were the invoices sent?” I asked.
“No, no.” Bick shook his head. “He who doesn’t pay the bills doesn’t get that information. And it wouldn’t do you any good, anyway.”
I turned that over in my mind, but I couldn’t make sense of it. “You asked if I knew whether or not the project was a go-ahead.”
Though Bick didn’t twitch, I could see invisible antenna springing forward at full attention. “Yes?” he asked.
“Actually, I have no idea.” Take that, Mr. Won’t-Share-Information.
He froze, then pointed the pipe stem at me. “How about lunch?”
Mack Vogel, superintendent of the Rynwood School District, was an imposing presence. As a church elder, he often read the Scriptures, his wide voice filling the sanctuary, long arms waving with emotion. More than one small Rynwoodite grew up with the vague notion that Mr. Vogel was the image of our Heavenly Father.
Fallen leaves swirled around my ankles with a noisy rattle as I trod up wooden porch steps and knocked on a front door that had been opened by Vogels for more than a century. The wind had shifted from a warmish south breeze to northwest gusts that were sneaking down my neck and up my pant legs. I stuck my hands in my pockets and shivered. It was time to get out winter coats and warm hats and fat boots the kids wouldn’t want to wear.
I knocked a second time, then looked around at the home Mack and Joanna and their four children had taken over when his parents had moved to Florida. After they’d finished roofing, replumbing, rewiring, plastering, and painting, they rested for two weeks and then started landscaping.
In peak season, roses climbed arbors, daylilies bloomed against picket fences, and creeping thyme planted between the bricks of the walkways perfumed the air. It was a showpiece, and Mack and Joanna gladly opened their house and grounds for fund-raising events, small concerts, and weddings.
Today, though, withering stems and spent flowers were turning the landscape into a forlorn wasteland. A few hardy mums were trying to perk things up, but leaves were floating down even now to cover them.
The front door opened and the early-evening sun lit Mack’s face. “Oh. Hello, Beth.” His normally resonant voice was flat. “What can I do for you?”
“Hi, Mack.” I frowned. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Would you like to come in?”
He didn’t look fine—fatigue was written in the dark bags under his eyes and in the set of his mouth—but who was I to disagree with the school superintendent?
Mack led me inside, and he stood in the middle of the living room, looking at the piles of newspapers and magazines and mail that covered every flat surface. His breathy sigh was full of weariness. “Just toss something on the floor. It doesn’t matter.”
Those last three words told me that something was truly, deeply wrong. Before today, I’d assumed the Vogels’ house repelled disorder with some sort of magical power. Never once in the multitude of functions I’d attended there had I ever seen a speck of anything even resembling dirt. “Um, is Joanna here?”
His eyes looked glassy, then wet, and then, to my shock, he started crying. His shoulders shook in great heaving sobs, and he covered his face.
I stood stock-still. It wasn’t a simple wink-out-a-few-tears kind of cry; it was a full-blown bawl. His face was red and twisted and old. “Jo-Jo-anna,” he kept repeating, her name coming out in small gulps. “Jo-Jo-anna.”
The cowardly parts that made up the majority of my body desperately wanted to flee. They wanted to pat Mack on the shoulder, say I’d come back at a better time, and run away fast.
The silvery ring of a handbell trickled down the stairs. Mack groaned. “I can’t do this anymore.” He swayed, a tall tree beginning its slow topple to the forest floor.
I took a fast step forward and shoved a chair behind his knees. “Sit.” I pushed down on his shoulders, and he sank fast onto the velvet upholstery.
The bell tinkled again. “You sit,” I said. “I’ll go up.”
Faster than a striking snake, he reached up to grab my hand. “Thank you,” he said. I squeezed back and slid out of his grasp. At the bottom of the stairway, I put my hand on the acorn newel post and looked across the room. Mack sat loosely, looking as if he’d forgotten how to use his muscles.
I was getting a very bad feeling about this.
The small tinkling bell sounded again. I took a deep breath for courage and went up. At the top of the stairs a six-paneled oak door stood slightly ajar. I sucked in another breath and knocked. “Joanna? It’s Beth Kennedy. May I come in?”
“Beth?” Her voice sounded strong and vibrant. “What are you doing here? Come the heck in. If I have to spend one more day in this bed without seeing anyone other than Mack, I’m going to go stark raving mad.” She laughed. “If I’m not already.”
From a Garden Club tour I remembered a brass bed covered with quilts and brightly colored pillows, lace sheer curtains at the bay window, a watercolor landscape of a country garden, a wood floor cushioned with an Aubusson rug. All that was gone. In their place were a hospital bed, stark white shades, and a wide collection of medical charts and graphs.
I stared at Joanna, at the naked windows and floors, at the charts littered with images that told me exactly what was going on. “You’re . . .” I couldn’t say the word. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was inferring an incorrect conclusion. Maybe I was—
“Pregnant,” Joanna said cheerfully. “That’s me.”
“But . . .” The words crowding into my mouth couldn’t be said out loud.
“But I’m forty-nine years old.” She grinned. “Yah. Who would have guessed?”
“Um . . .” It felt like years since I’d finished a sentence.
