Below the Tree Line Read online

  “I’ll bet near the end she did.”

  “Whoever is doing this could be someone you know, someone I know. We have no idea who is behind this, if it’s one person or two, or even if the deaths are connected.”

  “It’s Clarissa Jenkins’s brakes, isn’t it?”

  “You never stop, do you?” He tugged at his waistband again.

  “Dad was muttering about something secret, that I shouldn’t tell anyone.” She rested her hand on the open door. “It’s possible there’s some secret from years ago, something to do with land and Old Zeke. He and Zeke were close way back when. And lots of people know that.”

  “You know what I want you to do?”

  “Run the farm and stay out of it.”

  “That’s exactly it, Felicity.” He spoke softly, as if he didn’t want any of the neighbors to hear. The neighborhood was one of the few with homes facing sidewalks, well-tended lawns and shrubbery in front of a poured concrete foundation, and streetlights. Natalie had begun to turn off the lamps in the first-floor rooms, except for those that shone through the living room window. It was nearing ten o’clock, a time when almost everyone had settled in for the night.

  “I don’t know if this has anything to do with your dad when he was young or when he ran with Zeke Bodrun. Your dad was considered very shrewd for a young man, coming up with a way to get past a skeptical future mother-in-law, and we thought Old Zeke Bodrun had something to do with it. I heard your granddad traded him some cast-off lumber to repair his house some years ago in exchange for cutting firewood. We all heard things like that. And then Zeke moved into that cabin. But I never heard of real money or anything of value changing hands. That’s just fantasy. You can look if you want, but I don’t think there’s anything there.”

  Felicity slid into the front seat. “Maybe I will. I have a few ideas. But I just wish I knew exactly what I was looking for.” Kevin slammed the truck door and leaned on the frame.

  “Oh, Felicity, we all wish we knew what we were looking for. Then we’d know when we found it.” He patted the door and stepped away. “But you? You’re sure to find trouble.”

  Twelve

  The following afternoon Felicity parked near St. Peter’s Catholic Church in a suburb of Lanark. She saw only two or three available spaces, but it was hard to tell if the cars parked along the street belonged to mourners or those going about their usual business. The few parking meters covered with blue plastic caps announcing Funeral didn’t give any indication of the number of mourners inside. Felicity climbed the steps of the old Victorian church and stopped at the top to get her bearings.

  The vast nave was empty and she thought at first she’d come to the wrong place, but as her eyes adjusted to the dim interior a man dressed in black, an official usher from the funeral home, approached her and pointed to a small chapel off to the left. She turned to the aisle and followed it to a chapel softly lit. The eight rows of pews were nearly filled. She slid into the last one, nodding to the older woman near the middle.

  In the center of the second pew, a familiar head of yellow and green hair turned around and smiled at her. Padma sat beside her father, Dingel Mantell, and Felicity guessed he must have known the family. She recognized some of the other mourners, including Josie Halloway, who turned and caught her eye but didn’t smile. Beside her sat Nola Townsend and another artist from the Mill in West Woodbury.

  Many of the mourners were youngish women in their twenties, some with cell phones in their laps, judging by their concentration and posture. Others looked like friends of Sasha’s parents, middle-aged men and women who would be doubly pained at the loss of one so young, perhaps one close in age to their own children. One funeral for two generations of the same family, Felicity thought. What could be sadder?

  She let her mind drift until she caught sight of Lance Gauthier, sitting at the end of the second pew. He occasionally glanced to his right, to the front row, still empty, but not behind him. He nodded to one or two people but generally kept his eyes focused on the altar. She was mildly surprised to see him there, since he’d given no indication that he knew Sasha. It was good of him to come, Felicity felt.

  “Hello!” The whispered greeting came from Maddie, Sasha’s first-floor neighbor. She climbed over Felicity and settled in the pew. Apparently Catholic, she lowered the kneeler, moved forward, and prayed. After a minute or so, she sat back. “I’m so glad people have come. Her dad came to the house and he was so broken up I thought I’d have to call an ambulance for him.”

  “How’s her mom?” Felicity felt remiss for not having visited Sasha’s mother yet, but after her visit with Harold Glover, she wasn’t sure she could face another grieving parent.

  “She’s devastated.” Maddie studied the other mourners. “I heard she cried for two days nonstop, and then she got up and said she wanted to talk to the police. I don’t know what happened but she looks pretty resigned now. You never know how people will react.”

  “I haven’t seen her yet. I haven’t been brave enough.”

  Maddie patted her knee. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” She continued to scan the back of the mourners’ heads and Felicity wondered if she was looking for someone in particular. “See that guy at this end of the second pew? That’s Kyle. Ms. Callahan told the funeral home he wouldn’t be allowed to sit with the family.”

  Felicity glanced at Kyle, and then at Lance at the other end of the pew. Kyle slouched, his head down and his rangy torso folded over, making his short spiky hair look like a weapon about to spear the person in front of him. She couldn’t be certain if Lance had acknowledged Kyle earlier, but now she wondered if they knew each other, and if Lance had indeed known Sasha. But if he had, wouldn’t he have said something?

  “Do you know most of the people here?” Felicity asked.

  Maddie gave her a short rundown on those whom she knew. Felicity pointed out Padma and Dingel, Josie Halloway, and a few others. “I’m surprised Bruce isn’t here,” she said half to herself.

  “Why?” Maddie asked.

  “Oh, no reason. Just they’re usually together.” That was pretty lame, Felicity thought, but Maddie seemed satisfied and turned to look at the other mourners.

  “Who’s that guy?” Maddie was looking at the end of the second pew.

  “That’s Lance Gauthier. He’s a logger. He was with me when I found her.” Felicity lowered her voice when a woman in front turned around and hissed at her to be quiet. “It’s good of him to come,” she added in barely a whisper.

  “He looks really uncomfortable.” Maddie studied the back of Lance’s head for a while and gave a quiet harrumph. Before she could share her opinion, however, a door near the altar opened and the family, small as it was, filed in and took seats in the first pew.

  Felicity followed Maddie through the reception line in the church hall, offering condolences to Clarissa Jenkins’s and Sasha Glover’s cousins and more distant relatives. She steeled herself for greeting Sasha’s father and was relieved to find he had taken his feelings in hand and seemed almost calm. To his right was a small woman seated in a wheelchair. Felicity had noticed her entering with the family and assumed this had to be another aunt or distant cousin, but Mr. Glover introduced the elderly woman as his mother-in-law, Zenia Callahan.

  Felicity offered her condolences, and the old woman offered her a thin delicate hand with a surprisingly strong grip. It reminded her of Jeremy’s grandfather, who in the end couldn’t speak or walk or even eat but could break tools in half when he was frustrated. The elderly woman accepted her condolences and then her attention faded.

  To her right stood Sasha’s mother, a woman who had hidden her grief behind a veil of formality. Felicity introduced herself and saw the flicker of recognition in the other woman’s eyes.

  “I remember hearing your name,” Helena Bodrun Callahan said. She was well into her fifties, with thin lines crinkling arou
nd her eyes and mouth. She had the poise of a professional dancer, and wore her dark, wavy hair long and pulled back in a small knot at the nape of her neck. “Perhaps we could talk sometime.”

  Felicity spent the next half hour milling around the buffet table, where a number of church volunteers kept the platters full and the chatter light. She was used to this kind of funeral service, but Maddie grew restless almost at once.

  “I don’t like thinking about mortality,” she said. “I’m not ready.”

  “You don’t have to be,” Felicity said.

  “My sister-in-law came over the other day and all she wanted to talk about was her upcoming surgery. I hate that kind of conversation, the way people talk about their ailments and everything.” She held a plate of sandwiches and brownies close to her chest as she looked furtively around her. “I think I’ll go sit down.”

  Felicity was about to join her when Helena Callahan appeared at her side. A volunteer handed her a paper plate of selected food items, and the bereaved mother led Felicity to two chairs set apart from the others. She sat down and looked across the room at a group of young men lounging in the doorway and chatting.

  “My daughter went to school with most of them.” Helena stared at each one, and then looked over the other guests. “I told her when she was still in high school that most of these friends wouldn’t last. She’d leave them behind as she grew.” She looked down at her lap. “It was part advice and part my own ambition for her.”

  Felicity studied the younger guests. Yes, she could see how the advice would be true, based on what she’d learned about Sasha Glover. She did have ambition, as her mother wanted, but she seemed to have something more, a sense of the larger world and its possibility that she carried within her. “I’ve been hearing how good she was at her job, Ms. Callahan, and how much she loved it.”

  “She grew and they didn’t.” The woman turned to Felicity. “Please, call me Helena.” Felicity nodded. “What was she doing on your land?”

  “I have no idea. That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.” Felicity wondered how much the police had told the parents; if Kevin had indeed informed the mother of how Sasha had died.

  “I was so surprised when her father told me she was found in the woods. She wasn’t the outdoorsy type at all. She didn’t even like gardening.” Helena looked across the room at her ex-husband. “Sasha made a special point of staying close to her father. She was good at managing relationships, maintaining them. I wondered if she was waiting to see if her boyfriend, Kyle, was going to come along as she’d hoped, to mature the way he should, but she said no, she was done with him.”

  “She told you that?”

  Helena nodded. “We talked a few days earlier, and she said she’d come by and we’d have a good chat. That usually meant she had something specific to tell me.” She offered a wry smile. “She wasn’t one for drama. If she had an announcement, she said so, made it, and went on with whatever she was doing.” She settled back in her chair. “I was looking forward to it. I hadn’t seen much of her lately and I thought it would be fun to catch up with her, hear whatever it was she’d decided. I always worried she’d tell me she’d taken a job in Albany or New York, but I got used to that because I knew it would happen and I wanted her to succeed and be happy.”

  The last words caught in her throat and she pulled away. “I was so proud of her.” She brushed non-existent crumbs from her lap. “I’m a freelance booking agent for dance programs in the New England area, and I’ve been branching out into New York and the Midwest, so I was doing some traveling.” She leaned back in her chair, and the metal chair legs squeaked. “I missed visiting with her. I loved listening to how she was getting on and what she’d just learned. She had that enthusiasm of the beginner you just know is going to make it.”

  Felicity murmured something.

  “I have to stop talking like this. I’m not helping myself or anyone else.” Helena Callahan paused to sit up straight and look across the room. “My mother is devastated, but she’s grown philosophical, I guess.”

  Felicity followed her line of sight straight to the old woman in the wheelchair. Someone had positioned her at a table, where she was surrounded by a younger generation. “Sasha’s grandmother … so she would be Ezekial Bodrun’s daughter?”

  “That’s right.” Helena nodded, apparently unaware of the change in Felicity’s tone, from casual conversation to sudden interest. Instead, she took a moment to compose herself. “Sasha used to visit my mom after she went into the nursing home, when she was still a teenager. Not so long ago,” she added wistfully. “My mother will feel the loss.”

  “Did she talk to your mom about her current life?”

  Helena frowned. “I doubt it. Sasha was nothing if not diplomatic.”

  “I don’t understand.” It was Felicity’s turn to frown.

  “She would never talk to her grandmother about boy trouble, or man trouble now. She saved that for me.” Helena gave a soft laugh.

  “Did your daughter know how you felt about Kyle?”

  “A little. Well, yes, I guess she did. After she told me she was probably going to break up with him, I didn’t try to hide my feelings as much.”

  “Did she give you any idea of what she was thinking when she made the decision to break up with him?” Maybe this was the time, Felicity thought, or maybe it wasn’t, but Helena Callahan had opened the door and she was glad to walk through. Helena must have known what she was thinking, because she shifted in her chair and peered at her.

  “You mean, did she have a specific reason for ending it with Kyle?” She glanced across the room to where the man in question was slouching against a wall, next to a short woman whose green and yellow hair could only be Padma’s. “Is that Padma Mantell?”

  “I think so.”

  “Hmm. Well, as to your question, no, not that I know. I asked if something had happened and she said not really. She was just ready to move on. But I wondered. She seemed uncomfortable talking about it.” Helena looked down at the plate sitting in her lap, the small sandwiches untouched. She noticed a side table and slid the plate onto it. She straightened her skirt and pressed her knees together, sitting with her calves and feet perfectly aligned. “Her cousin, more like an aunt, might have had something to do with it.”

  “Do you mean Clarissa Jenkins?” Felicity asked. “When your daughter talked about Clarissa it sounded like they were very fond of each other.”

  “Yes, they were. Clarissa and I were cousins. When Sasha and I and everyone else in the family learned about Clarissa’s accident, we were devastated. And then my daughter. Now, we’re numb.” She glanced at her mother still surrounded by younger cousins and friends.

  “I have the dog Clarissa was fostering.” Felicity feared Helena would start crying.

  “Oh, that cute little black dog? She was very good with him. When I first saw him I thought he should be put down, for his own sake, but she was really good at bringing him back. So you have the dog?”

  “I do, and he’s coming along. Loretta Colson got him from Clarissa and passed him on to me.” Felicity was relieved to be able to say something positive in all this misery. She recalled Sasha’s one and only visit to the farm. “Was Sasha interested in dog fostering?”

  “Oh, no. Clarissa and Sasha were great friends, but my daughter didn’t have time for a pet.” Helena smiled. “Those two were very different. Clarissa was one for causes, and even though I didn’t always agree with her I thought she was a good influence on my daughter. She had such a sense of excitement about the world. She thought anything was possible if you put your mind to it.”

  “Even socializing an old hermit?” Felicity said. Helena glanced at her.

  “You mean Ezekial?”

  Felicity nodded. “I heard Clarissa took care of Ezekial near the end. I suppose that fits with the fostering of stray dogs.”

 
“Well, to the extent that anyone could take care of that old coot. He was my granddad too, and I loved him when I was a child because he was so different. My mother was sure she’d have to take him in at the end and dreaded having him around because he was so contrary, but in the end he died happy, in his cabin in the woods.”

  “Is it true Clarissa used to bring him meals and he grew quite fond of her and in the end he gave her a piece of land?”

  Helena laughed. “Well, yes and no. He transferred a piece of property to her, but I told her then I didn’t think it was worth much.”

  “Did he think it was worth something?”

  “He told Clarissa it was more valuable than gold. It had something special.” She shook her head.

  “Do you think he meant that literally?” This sounded like it could be the beginning of Kyle’s obsession with buried treasure.

  Helena shrugged. “Who knows? He was always buying up useless property, wood lots with no access, marshy areas with vernal pools, and pieces that were all ledge, coyote hotels I called them. If he had trouble paying the property taxes on them, the town might take it and sell it for taxes, so who knows what he owned when he died. My mother wasn’t happy about that, but I guess she sorted it out.”

  “So do you know what Clarissa did with the land?”

  “Oh, yes. She gave it to Sasha. When Sasha told me Clarissa was giving her the piece of land our granddad had given her, I gave Sasha the same talk. Don’t believe any of the nonsense. There’s no surprise wealth there. This isn’t a television show with an oil field hidden among the rotten trees. I don’t know if she believed me or what she did about it.”

  She told Kyle, Felicity thought, and he became obsessed with finding whatever that treasure was. That’s when she knew the relationship was going nowhere. “What happens with the land now?”