feet from the Christmas light displays.
On the front porch, Keith bounced in excitement, his cheeks pink from cold. “Can I help?”
Peg ruffled his blond hair. “Maybe I can get you a special ticket.” She shouted over the rattle of the motor. “Leon, can Keith ride with you?”
Gina hunched her shoulders against the sharp wind. “You’re going to spoil Keith big-time.” But her tone was amused. “Sorry you missed going out to the ranch for the tree. You’d think it would get old, but it never does. I always feel like a kid again. Tucker’s so proud of the tree, he’s about to bust.”
A whip-thin man with short silver hair and a weathered face twisted in the seat of the backhoe. He had the tough look of a man used to hard physical labor. He lifted a gloved hand in acknowledgment. “As soon as the tree’s in place.” He jumped from the cab and strode close to the hole.
Tucker watched from the driver’s seat of a tan Dodge Dakota. The cargo bed held a huge bluish-green Scotch pine.
“Ready,” Leon shouted.
Leaning out of the window, Tucker backed up slowly.
Leon waved him closer and closer. Just short of the excavation, he barked, “Stop.”
The wind ruffling her hair, Peg picked up Keith, balanced him on the porch railing. “Watch while they put the tree in the hole. Tomorrow, you can help decorate the tree. Everybody in the neighborhood comes and all the kids get to put on an ornament, then everyone has cocoa and s’mores and we sing Christmas carols.” She looked happy enough to bounce, too.
As she spoke, Leon steadied the tree as Tucker winched it over the excavation.
Excited children pressed nearer. Face stern, Leon made a chopping gesture with one gloved hand. “Back off, kids. We have to get her in place. The party’s not until tomorrow.”
Peg waved hello to several young mothers with children in strollers. A teenage girl held tight to a little boy’s hand.
As soon as the tree trunk disappeared over the edge of the hole, Tucker joined Leon. Grunting with effort, the two men positioned the tree. Using a pole, Tucker kept the pine upright.
Leon walked to the porch. He moved at a workman’s steady pace. He looked up at Keith on the railing and Peg beside him.
Peg’s smile was warm. “Keith, I want you to meet Leon. He was our best buddy when we were kids. He took us on hayrides and taught us to shoot and ride. He’ll build a great bonfire tomorrow and we can roast marshmallows.”
Leon’s tone was brusque but his eyes were soft. “Are you big enough to ride in my backhoe?”
Keith nodded, his face solemn.
Leon held up his arms. “Sure you are. You can push the dirt into the hole and make our tree steady as a rock. Tomorrow you’ll put the star on the very top. I’ve been setting up Christmas trees for your grandmother’s neighborhood party for a long time. I lifted up your daddy to top the tree when he was your age.” Leon swung Keith up to ride on his shoulders.
A door clicked on a second-floor balcony.
Peg and Gina looked up as Susan Flynn stepped outside. Susan’s silk robe wasn’t enough protection against the chill wind that ruffled her silver-streaked curls. Jake bustled out to join her, carrying a fleecy white cashmere shawl. “You’ll catch your death. Here, you’d better wrap up.”
Absently Susan took the shawl and drew it around her. She ignored Jake’s continued worried murmurs. Susan watched as Keith, sitting in Leon’s lap, Leon’s big hand over his, maneuvered the dirt, packing and tamping it around the massive Scotch pine. Susan’s eyes were shiny with tears. Peg clapped vigorously. Gina took a quick breath, turned, and stepped inside the house.
CHAPTER SIX
I hovered near the ceiling of the blue room at Pritchard House. Moonlight spilled through the windows. Keith was a small snug mound in his bed. Peg lay on her side, one hand curled under her cheek, lips curved in a half smile.
Before Wiggins abruptly left the cemetery en route to Tumbulgum, he’d warned me:
Was Wiggins listening or was Tumbulgum out of earshot?
I had no intention of leaving Keith unsupervised. Peg clearly welcomed him. As long as he was with her, I felt he was safe. Before I went to the lawyer’s office to delve into Susan Flynn’s will, I would be certain all was secure at Pritchard House.
First I stopped in Gina’s room. The breeze through the open window ruffled chintz curtains but had yet to dispel the lingering scent of tobacco smoke. I wondered if Gina dismissed other dangers as easily as she ignored the hazards of cigarettes. She was turned toward the wall in bed, her face in shadow, but her breathing was deep and even.
In the next room, Jake wore a padded black sleep mask. In the moonlight, she looked like a raccoon adorned with curlers. She moved restlessly, murmuring aloud.
I swooped near the bed.
“…door locked…can’t get in…not fair…”
Clearly her dreams were troubled.
