Hard Hat Man (15 page)

She
went
out
side to
see what was left.
The morning was
bright and sunny,
but
the air
still carried the smell of smoke.
The stench of smoky ashes grew stronger as she neared the site.

“Not much left, is there?” she commented, coming up behind
Kyle
.
She stared at the blackened piles of
wet
ash. Twisted metal pipes lay about, where stanchions for Horace’s herd of milk cows had once stood. Thank goodness the animals had all been sold months ago, so no lives had been lost in the fire. A large water tank stood off to one side, partially buried under a collapsed barn wall. Jan shivered at the sight.

“No, there’s not,”
Kyl
e agreed, turning to greet her.

“Thanks for making coffee. I meant to be up early enough to do that.”

The other man eyed her, a disgruntled look on his face. He wore
farmers
’
blue and white striped denim overalls and a blue chambray work shirt similar to what she remembered her Uncle Horace had always worn.
On looking closer, she recognized him as Alex Porter, the man they’d met at the restaurant the day before.

Kyle said,
“
You remember Alex.”

Jan nodded. “Hello, Mr. Porter.”

“I live right over there,” the man said, pointing across the field to a white farmhouse at least a half mile away. “So you can see why I don’t want no big apartment building and a bunch of businesses close by me.”

“Oh? Why not?
Surely you’re too far away for the traffic to bother you.
”

Alex snorted and ran a beefy hand through his graying hair. “Trust a city gal to not see the problem.” He turned to Kyle and snapped, “Don’t forget what I said. I’ll stop you one way or another.”

Kyle raised an eyebrow and pointed to the pile of ash in front of them. “Was this your
w
a
y of doing that
?”

Alex flushed angrily
but didn’t reply. He
stomped off to an older blue pickup parked off to the side of the driveway.
Climbing
in
, he
roared away
, dust from the graveled drive circling in a cloud behind him
.

Jan gazed after him,
worry forming a knot in her throat. She
turned back to Kyle. “Do you think he started the fire?”

Kyle nodded.
“I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“That’s awful. I mean, opposing a project is one thing, but arson is a crime
.
”

“Sure it is,
but I can’t prove he did it. Just as I can’t prove he’s behind any of the other problems I’ve been having.”

Jan shivered. “This is getting dangerous, Kyle.”
She turned at the sound of loud motors coming closer.
A truck and tractor
with a front-loader
were heading their way. Obviously, his men were about to start cleaning up the mess.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it
,” Kyle reassured her
, raising his voice to be heard
.
“
You’d better go back inside. It’s chilly this morning and you aren’t wearing a jacket.
”

“I suppose. I just wanted to see the damage for myself.” Jan sent a last glance at the
muddy,
blackened debris and hurried back down the path to the house.

***

Throughout the day, Jan found herself glancing out the windows to the men loading the debris from the burned barn
onto trucks
.
She made do with a frozen entrée heated in the microwave for lunch. The piles of sorted
belongings had grown. She’d resorted to putting everything she thought the historical society might want and the things for the thrift store in separate rooms. She filled a couple of boxes of things she wanted to keep: Aunt Esther’s recipe box filled with her favorite recipes, handwritten on cards. A couple of her cookbooks.
A large notebook filled with recipes and newspaper clippings. She
put them in her car. She
’d go through them later to see what she wanted to save.

She’d dreaded going to Nancy’s room upstairs, but thankfully, today the rocking chair sat unmoving. No ghost appeared. She chose a few keepsakes: Nancy’s diary, her favorite doll, a couple of Nancy Drew mystery books they’d read together that summer before Nancy had disappeared.

Jan sank onto her bed and opened
the diary. Her throat clogged with tears, she paged through it.
Where are you, Nancy? Why didn’t you ever write to me after you left? I thought you loved me enough to keep in touch. You never even said goodbye.

She read a few pages that Nancy had written that last summer. Nothing about leaving or even about a romance. How odd. And why hadn’t she taken her diary or most of her clothes? The things hanging in her closet were all things she remembered Nancy wearing that summer.
I’ll probably never know the answer.
With a sigh, she took the items she’d chosen downstairs, leaving the rest of the clothes, bedding and furniture for the thrift store. Perhaps some other girls would choose them and wear them again.

By sundown, only blackened soil remained where the barn had been. The gray silo stood alone off to one side. It was made of cement staves, so hadn’t been touched by the fire, other than being covered in black soot.

Kyle appeared at the house, very dirty and carrying a duffle bag. “Do you mind if I take a quick shower and change? Then I’ll take you into town for supper.”

“Of course,” Jan said. “Though you don’t have to buy me supper. I have some frozen entrees here.”

Kyle turned up his nose at that suggestion. “We’ve both worked too hard today to be satisfied with those. Humor me. I don’t like to eat alone.”

He went down the hall to the bathroom and closed the door. A moment later, Jan heard the shower running.

She swallowed, trying not to imagine him naked. She’d seen those muscular forearms and knew the rest of him would be just as toned. She closed her eyes, leaned back against the sofa and listened to the water running. Pictured it running over his naked shoulders, down his hairy chest and over his washboard abs. What would they feel like under her fingers?

Shaking off the images, Jan opened her eyes, getting up to pace the living room. Suddenly she stopped and stared.

Esther’s
large
family
Bible
lay open on the end-table. She reached out to touch it, wondering for a moment if she was really losing her mind. Hadn’t she packed the
Bible
in the box she planned
to take back to Chicago
?

Yet here it was, open to the family records page. She ran her fingers over the names of family births, baptisms, weddings and deaths.

Nancy’s record was filled in completely. Date of death, too!

She stood there in shock. She hadn’t noticed the water had stopped running or
heard
the bathroom door opening. Then Kyle spoke behind her.

“What’s so interesting?”

Jan jumped, then turned, her hand to her mouth.
Kyle had changed into clean slacks and a shirt
. He
looked handsome, very different from
when he wore
his jeans and hard hat.
“Yikes, you surprised me. I didn’t hear
the shower stop.
”

“Sorry.” Kyle leaned forward to see the page she’d been reading. “Something interesting here?”

The clean scent of soap and man tickled her nostrils and made her want to touch him. She swallowed hard and resisted the urge.
“Yes. I thought I packed this
Bible
in my car
, but here it is. And look at this: Nancy is recorded as having died.”

“Oh? Is the date the day she disappeared?”

“I think so. I’d have to look it up
to be sure.”

“They say old Horace was a strange one. Maybe he decided she was dead to him and their family because she left him?”

Jan swallowed. “Maybe. But look, here’s Esther’s record, too. Oh, my God!”

“What?” Kyle asked. “Didn’t you say she died of a heart attack?”

“Yes,” Jan whispered, her throat too dry to form the words out loud.

“So what’s got you upset about that?”

“The handwriting,” Jan whispered
, swallowing hard
. She cleared her throat and tried again. “It’s Aunt Esther’s handwriting! She recorded
N
an
cy
’s death and her own. How could she do that?”

Chapter 6

“Are you sure it’s your aunt’s handwriting?”

Jan nodded. “I was just looking at one of her recipe notebooks. Her handwriting is very distinctive.”

“Maybe she had a premonition?” Kyle asked
, raising an eyebrow
.

“
And decided to record
her death
as a fact?
Or did she commit suicide?” Jan said.
“And wanted to make sure her date of death was recorded in their family
Bible
?”

Kyle lifted a shoulder
and ran a hand through his still damp hair
. “I thought you said she died of a heart attack. Wouldn’t a doctor have known if she committed suicide?”

“Who knows? I doubt they did an autopsy. Don’t you think this is suspicious, though?”

Kyle nodded. “Yeah. But at the moment, I’m starved. Let’s go
into town and get some food.” He
led her through the front door and
locked the house behind them
. T
hey got into his car.

“I hope we don’t run into as many people as we did last night.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said, starting the motor. “On second thought, how about going to the next town instead? It’s only about ten minutes farther.”