The Widows of Eden (26 page)

“You're going to tell us that this Cecil character knew Vern, aren't you?”

“It wouldn't have surprised me, Lo, but no. The baron had a close advisor named John Warren. He was a favorite in the court of Henry the Eighth, but he got thrown in jail in 1542 for opposing the Witchcraft Act. That same year, Henry razed
a chantry at Winchester Cathedral called the Chapel of Lohengrin's Children.”

“In the same Winchester?” Lily asked. “What's a chantry?”

“Edith said it's a place where people go to chant.”

“Okay,” Loretta commented. “Chanting, chantry; I can see how that works. But how is the razing of a chantry connected to John Warren?”

Pokie referred to her notes again. “For one reason or another, Mr. Warren was eventually released from jail. Edith figures the queen gave him a pardon after Henry passed. Anyway, Mr. Warren became a confidante to the baron, who later referred him to an Irish judge named Nicholas White. Apparently, Mr. Warren was good with numbers …”

“He was good with numbers?”

“Uh huh, but he got into some kind of trouble with Queen Elizabeth, so the baron wanted to ship him over to Ireland until things cooled off.”

“When was that?”

“In 1568 or 1569. Mr. Cecil didn't say why.”

“Okay, but I still don't see the connection.”

“In two of his letters to the judge, the baron described Mr. Warren as a disciple of ‘Lohengrin's Children.'”

I was starting to get the heebie-jeebies, but Loretta kept her cool. “Really? What else did the letters say?”

“The baron described Mr. Warren as a smart man and a loyal adviser, but a bit contrary in his thinking.”

“Contrary?”

“Those were his words, Lo, and it struck me as a coincidence, too.”

“Did any of the judge's letters survive?”

“Not a one, but we do know that he fell out of favor with the queen a few years later. Edith figured it was Mr. Warren's fault.
Anyway, Judge White was arrested and eventually died in the Tower of London.”

“So that was the end of John Warren.”

“Not quite,” Hail Mary countered.

Pokie continued, “Edith and I started rooting around in Irish history after that, and we found one last connection to Lohengrin's Children. A man named ‘John Warren, Lohengrin's Childe' — which was spelled with an ‘e' on the end — was listed among the battlefield casualties at a place called Drogheda Castle.”

“It appears that Mr. Warren made a habit of being on the wrong side,” Loretta observed.

“No kidding. When did Drogheda Castle fall?”

“In 1649, Mary.”

“Would you repeat that for everyone?”

“In 1649. Even if John Warren was a child in the court of Henry the Eighth, he would've been one hundred and twenty years old when he died, on the field of battle.”

“No shit!” Lily remarked. “That makes perfect sense! Wait till I tell you what Buford found out about the widows.”

That piqued my curiosity, but the ever-officious Mary beat me to the punch. “You're next on the docket, Lily, but let's close this item first. Is that all, Pokie?”

“Yes, Ms. Wade.”

“On behalf of the Quilting Circle, I'd like to thank you for doing a terrific job. Please pass our appreciation on to Tulip, as well.”

“You might want to buy her a bottle of Baileys, ma'am. She keeps one under the counter for after hours, but we finished it off this morning.”

“I'll send it with the gratitude of the Circle.”

“That'll be nice, thank you. If you don't mind me asking, what are you gonna do about Mr. Moore?”

“We haven't decided yet. Why?”

“Can I offer my own opinion before I go?”

Dottie looked at Hail Mary, who said, “Of course. We're all aware of your past relationship with Mr. Moore.”

“I don't claim any relationship with Mr. Moore, but I have seen what that man can do. Whatever he is, he's not one of us. I wouldn't want to land on his dark side, that's for sure.”

“What are you trying to tell us, Pokie?”

“I'm saying that he has a way with the weather, and with life and death. That's a proven fact. If I was close to Mr. Moore, I'd be privileged to hold his hat, but then I'd stand back.”

Mary smiled. “Speaking for the board, I can say that we're all privileged to be acquainted with Mr. Moore and very appreciative of his past efforts.”

“You could've fooled me, ma'am. Where I come from, which is right here, we don't normally launch investigations into folks we're privileged to know.”

“Perhaps, Deputy, but the circumstances in this case are highly irregular. You may have noticed a few irregularities yourself last night, but thank you for your advice. We'll take it under careful consideration.”

The rest of us sat in silence while Pokie closed her notebook and left the room, then Hail Mary opened the floor. “Questions? Discussion?”

“Why don't we hear what Buford found out about the widows first?” I proposed.

Loretta, Bebe, and Dot practically fell over each other seconding my motion, so Mary said, “Are you ready, Lily?”

“Am I ever! Hang on to your pixie dust, girls! You're about to be transported from Olde England to Never Never Land, where dead people never die.”

It wasn't easy, but I did my best to sit still and keep my mouth
shut while Lily related what Buford had learned about the widows. When she was done, Loretta whispered in my ear, “Vern was right. My daughter is
not
taking the entrance exam for Lohengrin's Children.”

Hail Mary inhaled deeply and said, “Math was never my best subject, Lily. How old is the Widow Birdie now?”

“It's hard to say, but she ran a secondhand store more than a hundred years ago …”

“That is one well-preserved fire victim,” Bebe observed on behalf of a board that remained generally awestruck and pixie-dusted. “I'd like to hire her mortician.”

“You might want to retain Marion's mortician, too,” Lily advised. “She was sixty-something when the
Titanic
went down. That makes her what, a hundred and sixty-odd now? In comparison, Eloise is a mere child of eighty-five or ninety.”

“Like Mr. Moore,” I added, as if it made him less of an age-related oddity.

Hail Mary frowned. “Is there anything else, Lily?” she asked.

“Yep. All three of the widows' RVs are registered in a town called Eden.”

“Eden? Did you say Eden?”

“I'm not making this up, Mary. All three of 'em are registered in Eden, Arizona. Buford took the company jet down to Tucson this morning. John Smith went with him.”

“They did?” I said. “What do they expect to find?”

“Maybe they'll find a black swan,” Lo remarked.

“A what?” Dottie inquired.

“Pokie mentioned the legend of Lohengrin. Did any of you bother to look it up?”

“I went to the opera,” Mary kindly reminded us all.

“Then perhaps you'd like to tell us about it.”

“I would, but it was in German.”

My best friend rolled her eyes and said, “Then why don't I give it a try? You can fill in the gaps. The legend of Lohengrin dates to German Arthurian literature in the twelfth century. He was the son of Percival, a knight of the Round Table, and in possession of certain special powers, but his twin brother inherited the family's wealth so Lohengrin became a Grail Knight. Later on, he was dispatched to a place called Brabant, where the local duke had died without a male heir. Luckily, our man was single at the time and in search of a duchy he could call his very own. He arrived to save the day in a boat pulled by a black swan; sort of like widows arriving in motor homes with dolphins and seagulls on them, but I digress.”

Everybody looked at each other while Loretta pressed on. “Lohengrin agreed to marry the deceased duke's daughter, Elsa, but on the condition that she never ask him to disclose his true identity. Elsa may have been a duchess, but underneath all the jewelry and designer clothes she was just another bony, weak-kneed woman. Eventually, she was overcome by her feminine curiosity, so she asked her husband who he really was. He answered truthfully, but then he stepped back into his swan boat and disappeared forever.”

“Forever?” I remarked. “But Mr. Moore has been back to Ebb twice.”

Mary scowled. “It's just a legend, for God's sakes! Vernon didn't arrive in a boat. He doesn't stick around. He didn't marry anybody.”

“But he has powers, and he gave Loretta a child. We don't know who he is either, not really. What if Buford finds out? What if he can never return?”

“I'm done,” Bebe announced. “Five-hundred-year-old travel clubs, people with secret identities and special powers, dead widows who live to be a hundred and whatever. I'm all in; my ‘no
shit' reservoir is empty. I want to go home and do something that puts me in touch with the real world, like read
Cosmopolitan
or watch a reality show on TV.”

“It's too incredible, isn't it?” Hail Mary lamented. “Every report seems to defy logic even more than the last, but the future of our county is at stake. We need to step back and focus on what we know for sure.”

“Okay,” Loretta said. “What do we know for sure?”

“If you boil it all down, only two things matter: Vernon Moore is in Ebb, and he's going to ask for Clem Tucker's life tomorrow.”

“How can you be sure of that? The rain's already coming. What if Vern asked last week? What if Clem refuses to give him the money? What if he has a different plan up his sleeve altogether?”

The room fell silent, then Hail Mary said, “Okay, Lo. What's your plan?”

“It hasn't changed, Mary. My plan is to leave the salvation of the county to the expert. My plan is to put my faith in Vernon L. Moore.”

“Loretta's right, Counselor,” Dottie interposed. “We're way, way out of our league here. We need to shut up and let the man do his work.”

“How can you say that, Dot? The county …”

Lily interrupted midsentence. “Have you been listening to anybody in this room today? Things are going on here; weird, spooky things that we have no business putting our noses in. We need to have some faith in the man, or the widows, or whatever the heck they really are.”

“But, but …”

Dottie shook her head. “Goddammit, Mary! Read the tea leaves and put a sock in it! We're all in accord here. I move that we adjourn. Who seconds?”

My hand shot up like a Patriot missile. Loretta's, Lily's, and Bebe's did, too.

Lo looked around slowly, then said, “I'm no authority on Robert's Rules of Order, but I believe it's time to call for a vote, isn't it?”

In the end, it was five votes for faith and one for whatever takes its place in the hearts of those who've lost it. By then, I felt sorrier for Hail Mary Wade than for Rufus and Winnie Bowe. They might have lost their farm, but I bet they kept their faith. At least, I hope they did.

Chapter 31

 

R
EVELATION
, P
ART
II

E
XCLUDING
T
HANKSGIVING
, my Fiancé in Perpetuity hosted about one big dinner per year at the River House. As often as not, it was to reveal some sort of stratagem. Three years ago, it was the Big Buyback, when Clem sold the Tucker Trust's farm holdings to tenant farmers as long as they got their mortgages at the county bank, which Clem owned lock, stock, and barrel. A year later, the big soirée was to announce that he had sold Hayes County Bank to the National Bank of the Plains, also known as NBP, which is the biggest financial institution in Nebraska and the Dakotas. He must have forgotten to tell us that he would use the proceeds to take over NBP and throw out the CEO later the same week.

Maybe it was the drought, or maybe it was the revelations of the day, but the idea that Clement might be announcing something momentous didn't even enter my mind until I was choosing my attire for the occasion. All of a sudden, I had no idea what to pick, as if the prospect of a blockbuster announcement had changed the dress code for the evening. In the end, I decided to wear my little black dress. It wasn't all that little, but it was the safest item in my wardrobe, and I was thinking about safety at the time.

Road Rage offered me a ride to the River House with the widows, but I turned him down in favor of Mr. Moore. That bought me a return visit to the tiny rear seat in his Mustang, with a blueberry pie in my lap to boot, but it gained me a spot where I could keep an eye on my other pie, in Clara's lap. Maybe it was an irrational thought, but I was expecting her to start barking like an old-school auctioneer at any minute. As it turns out, Mr. Moore and I talked about the farmers and their various predicaments all the way down, and Clara didn't utter a word, not even “yes” or “no.”

Pearline met us at the door — I swear she nearly bowed when she saw Mr. Moore — then she assumed custody of the pies and ushered us into the great room, where we found Clem tending bar for the widows. Rather than pajamas, he was dressed in a black blazer, a black knit shirt, and black slacks. His head had been polished to a high sheen, and he was wearing a big, toothy grin. Clem always had good teeth; “all the better to bite you with,” he would say.

The Millets arrived shortly after we did and the party began in earnest. Consuela and Pearline passed through the gathering with trays of hors d'oeuvres and flutes of champagne, Clem was on his best behavior, and the widows were as sweet as cotton candy, but the conversations reminded me of past reunions with distant relatives. Everybody was outgoing but reserved at the same time, and no one mentioned anything pithy like Clem's illness, the weather, or anybody's age. Meanwhile, Clara sat on a barstool with a glass of champagne, occasionally responding to a question with a yes, a no, or a nod, but mostly watching the proceedings in the same way she watches movies: with amused detachment.