Even if the wintery temperatures were not cold enough to give the river watchers peace of mind, it was at least cold enough to make June’s layers of clothing seem natural. Only Jim knew that she could no longer zip her slacks closed. She covered the evidence with a long T-shirt, and over that a baggy sweater that reached below her hips.

Susan gave her a sidelong appraisal. “Are you ever going to graduate into actual maternity clothes?” she asked.

Every morning when she rose and dressed for the day, when all of her clothes, from bra to boots, felt more snug, she would realize how fast time was fleeing. While Jim was busy helping all over town, while cold and flu season was in full swing, while the bleakness of winter deepened toward Thanksgiving, June grew.

“Are you concerned?” June asked her nurse.

“Actually, yes. See, there comes a point at which your unzipped pants won’t stay up, and at the worst possible moment, you find them around your ankles. I’ve been there.”

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t only Jim who knew.

“Even if I had the time, I wouldn’t know where to look,” June admitted.

“Never fear,” Susan said. “I’ll get catalogs. And your aunt Myrna called. She wondered if you might have time to run by Hudson House. She’d be happy to give you lunch.”

June wasn’t taking any more chances. “Call her back and tell her I’ll bring lunch. At about twelve-thirty.”

Not only did June grow, she grew ever more hungry. The nausea of early pregnancy was replaced by ravenous hunger. She called George at the café and asked him to make a foot-long submarine sandwich with everything. Aunt Myrna might eat a fourth of it, if she were starving. She stopped at Crandall’s bakery and picked up four double-chocolate-fudge brownies—the large size. One for her, one for Myrna and one for each of the twins. Unless someone didn’t want theirs…

It was just a tish past twelve-thirty when she arrived to find Myrna waiting impatiently for her. “Thank goodness you’re here. I thought I might have to drive in to the clinic to have a word with you. I can’t remember when I’ve asked anyone for advice, but June—he’s coming.”

“He’s what?”

“Coming! Edward Mortimer! He’s traveling to Grace Valley to see me. After all these years of letters, without so much as a phone call between us, he’s coming! What in the world am I going to do with him?”

June still stood in the foyer. “My goodness. When?”

“Thanksgiving.” She said it in a panicked whisper. “Thanksgiving,” she repeated.

“Myrna, we have at least a couple of weeks. Do you suppose we could have lunch?”

“Oh, I couldn’t eat a thing,” she said, whirling away from June. “Come to the kitchen then, you can eat.”

When they were settled in the breakfast nook, June spread her picnic out on the table. She fetched a knife and two plates, cut a piece of the sandwich off and put it before Myrna despite the fact that the older woman waved her away impatiently. Secretly, June hoped Myrna wouldn’t eat it. She was famished. But before digging into her much larger portion, she asked, “Just why are you so frazzled? I thought you wanted to meet him in person.”

“I have always wished for him to visit. I even attempted to meet him in Fresno years and years ago. You must understand, dear, we’ve been writing each other letters for many years. On one hand, we’re the best of friends. But on the other, were complete strangers….” Her voice drifted off wistfully.

“How did all this start, Myrna?”

“Edward was a true aficionado of my work,” Myrna went on. “I think he knew more about some of my plots than I did.”

“How sweet,” June said, between chews.

“Yes, isn’t it? Back then, before we all worked on computers, a lot of us would write letters. I used it as a means of warming up for the day. It was every bit as creative an art as our novel writing or poetry. And I spared no talent in my gift of entertaining. I ranted and raved and carried on about Morton once and Edward wrote me back that my letter set him ablaze, it read with such passion and rage. He asked me if I’d ever considered killing him off in a book.”

“So it was Edward’s idea,” June said.

“Oh, I guess it was,” Myrna said. “But I was this close to thinking of it myself.”

While June ate her generous lunch, Myrna unfolded a story of friendship that went back almost twenty years. Edward encouraged the idea of her notorious husband-killing books, and on occasion read and critiqued her manuscripts, as well. He was the only one to do that, according to Myrna. No other friend or fellow writer saw her work before her editor. Not only was this pen pal lurking behind Myrna’s career, always supportive and at times actually helping, but Myrna was also acting as mentor to Edward who, after retirement, was finally getting an opportunity to write.

He’d worked in a ho-hum job, he said, bringing in just enough money to get by. He hadn’t been necessarily unhappy, thanks to books and friends and travel, but he hadn’t been fulfilled. Then finally, in his senior years, came his opportunity to write some of the history he’d studied as a hobby all his life. An avowed bachelor in his sixties, he came late to the profession, but published his first nonfiction book a few years after his first contact with Myrna.

“He’s a very talented writer, but I still like to think my assistance had something to do with him finishing that first book and getting it published. I read the manuscript several times, giving him editorial advice and correcting errors. I even championed him to my editor! He didn’t buy Edward’s book, but still… When you think about it, I suppose I was only doing for him what he’d done for me. I think we relied on each other for about twenty-five or maybe thirty books, between us.”

“Who knew you had this mystery man in your life, keeping your prose tight and your plots grisly!”

“As I said, I’ve been in touch with lots of writers over the years. This one, though, this one emerged as special. He’s been with me a long, long time.”

“Then why are you so nervous? Meeting him should be a wonderful experience. And what better time than Thanksgiving?” June covered her mouth as a small burp escaped. “We’ll cook, however. Dad and I and Jim.” It was just then that she looked around the kitchen and realized that neither Barstow twin had made an appearance. “Where are the twins?”

“I couldn’t have them around to eavesdrop on this long, drawn-out story. I sent Amelia home when I received Edward’s letter.”

June’s eyes lit up at the mere thought that no Barstows would be sharing the brownies. She opened the white bakery package slowly, almost reverently. “What is it you think I can do to help, Auntie?”

Myrna leaned toward June. “First, don’t even mention this to your father. I’ll tell him when I have it figured out. Second, what am I going to do with him, June? I can’t have him here!”

“Why ever not?”

“Besides the Barstows getting underfoot, what if I don’t like him so much in person? What if he doesn’t like me?”

“That’s not probable, now, is it?”

“Well, June, we come across quite differently in letters than we do in the flesh. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Possibly true, but we also get to know each other much better by revealing our personalities in letter after letter. I imagine that’s why all these people fall in love in chat rooms on the Internet.”

“Exactly!” she said. “Then they meet and find out they’ve been misled!”

“Myrna,” June began suspiciously. “Have you misled Edward somehow?” She half expected her aunt to say she’d lied about her age or something. But Myrna was vigorously shaking her head. Her aunt was notoriously honest.

“What if he finds me…eccentric?”

June’s laugh was so sudden and loud, there was no hope of concealing it as a cough or sneeze. Myrna frowned. “Now, Auntie,” she said. “You can’t expect miracles.”

“Cheek.”

“If you’ve written him for almost twenty years, I’m sure he already knows you’re just a tad colorful.”

“You were never punished enough as a child,” she grumbled.

“Oh, Auntie…” She laughed.

“And look at you eat! You’re going to be as big as old Charlotte Burnham before long!”

June daintily placed what was left of her second brownie on the white paper in which it had been wrapped. “Now you’re just being vengeful.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear. You set me off with that utter nonsense about me being an odd old duck—”

“I never…!”

“Whatever you said, it sounded to me like I’m an odd old duck, which I am, but I don’t like people thinking so.” Myrna got to her feet and left the nook, talking all the while. “There’s something I want you to hear. You’ll see what I mean.” She was back in a flash with a letter in her hand. “Now, listen to this, June.

“Oh! Aunt Myrna, how lovely he is!”

“Yes, isn’t he? And what if he gets here and can’t stand me? Or I can’t stand him? Either way, the letters, which I’ve so enjoyed and depended on, would be over.”

June thought about that for a moment. “I see what you mean. Given all the options, you’d prefer not to change anything about this.”

“Exactly! But… Well… He’s coming and I won’t be rude and tell him he can’t. I just can’t imagine what—”

“Have you allowed for the possibility that you might fall head over heels for each other?” June asked.

“Now you’re being silly,” Myrna said, but there were two round red stains on her cheekbones.

June gathered up her brownie, the paper and bags she’d brought lunch in, and stood. She leaned over and gave her tiny aunt a kiss on the forehead. “Everything is going to be fine. Wonderful, in fact. You’ll have Dad, Jim and I all to help, and we’ll treat Edward to a wonderful Thanksgiving. If you really don’t want him to stay here, make arrangements for him at the B and B down 482, but I don’t think I’d trust Agatha Worth with your man!”

“He’s not exactly mine,” Myrna said.

“As good as! I have to get back to the clinic. Are you going to be all right, or should I give you a little something to settle you down?”

“I wish you would, dear. I’m a trifle excited.”

“Fine, I’ll give you this advice. Have a cup of hot tea, put your feet up for a while and, instead of fretting, make positive pictures in your mind of all this working out wonderfully. Affirmations, Auntie.”

Myrna made a face. “I could have sworn I’d be getting a Valium soon.”

“Ha! You wish! I’ll call you later and see how you’re holding up!”

 

Sam felt somewhat at a disadvantage, having never raised children. Aside from the occasional lawn boy or part-time helper to sweep up around the station, he hadn’t had employees, either. It was therefore very hard for him to understand why young Conrad Davis would give up a chance to earn honest pay for honest work, work that was so easy and pressure free. Sam certainly didn’t need help at the station; it ran itself. The only possible way he could make this any easier for Conrad would be to invite the boy to stay in bed and deliver him a paycheck every week.

Sam had told Conrad twice that he was not to insist on cash payment for the gasoline. IOUs from his regular customers would be fine. And he was to wash the windows and check the oil unless he was specifically asked not to. So Sam spent a morning across the street from his station, lurking behind tall lilac bushes, watching his station, feeling guilty to be sneaking around. He saw exactly what he expected to see. Conrad wasn’t going to much trouble to help the customers. He washed a couple of windshields, checked the oil a couple of times, but no single car or truck got the full treatment. He argued for cash, which he put in his pocket, and only one customer refused and insisted on leaving his IOU.

After a couple of hours, Sam walked out from behind the bushes and crossed the street to his station. Conrad hadn’t even noticed where he came from.

“Hey, old man,” he said. “What brings you to town?”

“Just been sitting over there, across the street, kind of watching how you do business, son. I guess none of what I asked you took hold, did it, now?”

“What’re you talking about? You been spying on me?”

“Well now, let’s see. I was watching you, my employee, conduct business here, at my station. Would that be spying? Or would that be quality control?”

“You old codger, you—”

Sam put his hand out. “Let’s have it, Conrad. What you collected this morning.”

Conrad hesitated. Anger twisted his features and he squirmed, but eventually he pulled a wad of bills and one IOU out of his pocket. He slammed it into Sam’s hand. Sam’s hand, much the larger, grasped both the money and Conrad’s fist and he squeezed, holding on. Sam’s eyes bored into the younger man’s. After he thought he might have made his point, he let go. Then he slowly counted the money, which was not organized by bills.

Conrad couldn’t watch. Had he known Sam was right across the street, he’d have gone inside the station and transferred some bills to his other pocket.

“…Fifty, fifty-five, sixty, one, two, three… Not a bad business for a morning, huh? And twice what the station took in the last two full days.”

“What are you saying?” Conrad asked defensively.

“I guess what I’m saying, son, is that I don’t need you anymore. This isn’t working out. Customers I’ve had for more than twenty years are letting me know they don’t like the way you handle things around here.”

“What do you want from me, old man?”

“Not a single other thing, son. Except maybe you stop calling me old man. You and the missus go ahead and squat in that house for the time being. Maybe you’ll find more work around here…or maybe you’ll decide there’s a better place for your family. But if I let you pump gas in Grace Valley one more day, my closest friends are going to drive all the way to Rockport to gas up.”

Conrad was quiet for a minute, staring at that wad of bills in Sam’s hand. Then he said, “One more chance, old—Just tell me how you want it done and that’s just how I’ll do it. One more chance.”

Sam felt himself almost break into a sardonic smile. The young man wasn’t asking for another chance, he was telling. “Sorry, Conrad.”

“What? What? Just like that?”

“Just like that, after a few warnings. And I’m going to go ahead and let you keep what you skimmed the last week or two, hoping you use it to take care of that young family rather than do some selfish thing.” He shook his head sadly. “This isn’t your fault, son. I shouldn’t have stuck my nose in your business, trying out my brand of help on you. All those expectations and we weren’t, neither one of us, up to it.”

“Yeah, you got that right, old man,” he said, plunging his hands into his pockets and moving sulkily away. After taking about ten steps he stopped, crouched to pick up a rock and threw it point-blank at the station doors. A window shattered under the assault. Sam didn’t flinch; Conrad brushed his hands together in satisfaction, then continued his walk down the street.

Boy, did I pick that one wrong, Sam thought.

 

The shorter days hadn’t changed Tom’s schedule much. In fact, he was rousted from bed earlier in the winter than in summer and spring. Plentiful work and long workdays tended to wear people out, help them feel they’d been successful regardless of how much they’d earned, and there was far less trouble in the valley.

This early morning Deputy Lee Stafford had answered a domestic disturbance at the Craven household. That got Tom’s attention. It was usually a good idea to get backup for domestic calls, given the volatile and unpredictable nature of them. But the Craven family had a long and tragic history with domestic problems. The late Gus Craven had been jailed numerous times for beating his wife and five children, and then one horrible night, when he’d been drunk and out of control, Leah gave him a whack on the back of the head with a shovel, ending his battering days forever. A jury of her peers had determined that it was the whack Gus had long been begging for.

But family violence is a hard thing to nip in the bud. It’s generational. Ironically, the one thing a child most abhors about a physically abusive parent is the very thing he or she might inherit—a tendency to hit.

Sadly, Tom was not too surprised to find that the physical altercation had been between sixteen-year-old Frank and his mother, Leah.

Tom and Frank had way too much history for a boy his age and a police chief, and way too personal to boot. Frank had, for a time, romanced Tom’s eldest daughter Tanya. And in some unreasoned fit of rage, Frank had struck her, just as Frank’s father had struck his mother.

But all that was before; Tom was concerned with now. By the time Lee and Tom arrived at the scene, Leah was rocking in the chair on her porch, an ice pack on her eye, and Frank was sitting on the porch steps, crying. There were lights on inside, but all was quiet. All but the creaking of the rocking chair and the subdued sniffing.

“Everyone inside doing all right?” Tom asked Leah.

“Yes, Tom. Frank and I—We had an argument is all. Kids never even got out of bed.”

“One of them called the police, Leah.” Briefly, surprise registered on her face. “Lee, go in and check on the kids. Make sure no one’s hurt or needing anything.”

Lee went into the house. He was a good man for this duty; he had a couple of his own little ones. Lee and Ricky were both about thirty years old, Ricky being the bachelor.

“Let me have a look, Leah,” Tom said. She slowly lowered the ice pack and revealed a bruised cheekbone. He touched it softly; she winced just slightly. “It doesn’t look real bad, but I suggest you drop into the clinic later, have June or John take a look.”

“It’ll be okay,” she said. “I’ve had worse.”

“That’s fine talk,” Tom said. “Sounds like this family is right back where it was when Gus was alive.” Leah looked into her lap and Frank muttered something. “What’s that, Frank?”

“I said, it was an accident!”

“I’m sure it was. At least, you never intended it. Why don’t you go get yourself a jacket, Frank.”

“Naw, I’m okay. I’m not cold.”

“We’re going for a ride,” Tom told him.

Leah rose out of her chair. “Oh, Tom, no! Don’t take him in. It wasn’t as bad as it seems. He got in late, we argued, I pushed him too—”

“We’re just going for a ride, Leah,” Tom said, though he could take Frank to jail and charge him with battery if he wanted to. But Tom wanted to accomplish two things. First, he wanted to separate the combatants. No matter how contrite and sorry Frank might be at the moment, tempers could soar quickly when just the right comment was made and the whole dispute could arise anew. And second, he wanted a little time with the young man to talk about counseling, anger management and the like.

“It’s okay, Mama,” the boy said.

A couple of minutes later Frank returned to the porch with a jacket on and gave his mother a kiss on the top of the head. He then descended the steps and went to the Range Rover, his hand on the back door. “Get in front, Frank,” Tom called. Perplexed for a moment, Frank finally let himself into the front.

Seeing that Leah and the other children were all right, Tom and Lee got ready to take their leave.

“I’m getting tired of coming out to this house,” Lee said. “I thought this sorry business was over, with Gus gone.”

“Shows what you know,” Tom said. “I’ll see you back in town.”

Once in the car, driving, Tom turned to Frank and asked, “You want to end up like your dad?”

“Dead, you mean?” he asked with sarcasm.

“We’re all going to end up dead, son. I mean with a temper you can’t control. I mean hurting people you care about and then feeling like a big loser because of it. That’s what I mean.”

Frank didn’t answer right away. “No one wants that,” he finally said.

“There are things we can do to try to head it off at the pass, you know.”

“We?”

“Son, I’m the one who got pulled out of bed before dawn to drive out to your house and see who’s beating up who. I’ve been doing that a long time now, first with your daddy and now, it seems, with you. I figure we’re in this together. At least partly.”

Frank slid down in the seat. “That’s a comfort,” he grumbled.

Tom let it go. “I didn’t know if I was going to have to start handling domestic calls that involved you, but I’ll be honest with you, the statistics said I would. Now we’re faced with a couple of choices. I can start locking you up each time, or we can get you in a program. You should already have been in one….”

“I was.”

“Is that so? You quit or something?” Tom asked.

“No. I went the three months.”

“You graduated?”

Frank looked over at him. “Yes,” he returned with the same incredulous inflection in his voice as Tom. “Guess that shows you how good a program it was.”

Tom whistled. “Point taken. Well, we have to do something. We can’t just act like it didn’t happen, Frank.”

“Maybe you should lock me up awhile,” he offered.

Tom drove right past the police department and on down Valley Drive. “I know that isn’t going to do any good. I wish it would—that’d make life simple, wouldn’t it? Just grit your teeth, hang out in County for a while and be miraculously free of that compulsion to strike out every time things don’t go your way.”

“It wasn’t exactly like—”

“Okay, how about every time someone is just so damned annoying and provoking that there seems to be only one way to get them to back off? How about that? That how it was?”

“Yeah! That’s how it was!” he said.

Tom pulled the Range Rover up to the café, which was still dark. He put it in Park and looked at Frank. “Okay, try this on for size, big shot. Not everyone gets that annoyed and provoked. It’s in the DNA, handed down from generation to generation. It’s like a medical condition. And there is treatment.”

“What are we doing here? I don’t work till after school.”

“I’ve got a key. We’ll put on the coffee for George, get ourselves some orange juice and come up with a plan for you.”

“Aww,” he whined.

“It’s me or Judge Forrest,” Tom said.

“No contest there,” Frank allowed.

“Good choice.”

Tom pulled out an impressive key ring with keys to most of the businesses and storage sheds in town, but when he got to the back door, it was ajar about three inches. His arm came out across Frank’s chest, stopping him in his tracks. He put a finger over his lips and steered the boy back to the Rover. He put Frank in, pulled the shotgun out.

He’d like to think George just forgot to lock the door, but George never had before. Although it was a town where theft was rare, there were two businesses on the main street that were careful with locks—the café and the clinic. In the café George had to worry about stores of expensive food and supplies, and the clinic kept supplies of a different nature on hand, plus some drugs. Not only were those doors kept locked, whoever was on night patrol checked them. “Lie down on the front seat,” he whispered to Frank. “Lock yourself in.”

He raised the shotgun, cocked it, filled the chamber and prepared to clear the building. He pushed open the door, sidled in, flipped on the light. He moved stealthily through the café, checked closets, bathrooms, booths. There was no one in there. Whoever had been there had left a long time ago. And had left the cash drawer gaping and empty.

“Well, I’ll be a damned dog” came the voice of George from the doorway.