Chapter Fourteen
Hannah had to hunt for the pen she’d dropped in her purse only moments before. The roomy interior of her saddlebag-type purse reminded her of a claw arcade game. You operated the steam shovel to grasp a prize from the jumble of items in the glass box. Sometimes you lucked out and managed to get what you wanted. Other times you came up with a prize you could easily live without. This time Hannah was lucky, and she drew out the pen she wanted on the very first try.
“Ready?” Doc asked her.
“Yes.”
“When Matthew came to school at Jordan High, he tried out for the football team and made it as an alternate quarterback. Hugh Kohler was the regular quarterback and had been for the past two years. I saw a couple of the games. The kid was good.”
“So Hugh Kohler was the quarterback and Matthew was second string?” Norman asked.
“For the first three games. But everything changed when Coach Telleson took the whole team on a camping trip at Eden Lake. It was the weekend before the big homecoming game, and they were supposed to bond together as a team. Unfortunately, it didn’t work.”
“What happened?” Hannah asked him.
“The first thing Coach Tellson had them do was gather firewood. They could go in groups or individually. He said later that he did it to see which boys worked best together and which boys preferred to go it alone. I asked him why, and he told me that it would help him make decisions about which boys to play in certain positions.”
“Okay,” Norman said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “What did he say about Matthew?”
“He said that Matthew went off alone, and so did Hugh. Hugh’s younger brother, Adam, stood there for a minute and then he went off alone, too. The same for Matthew’s cousin, Paul.”
“Paul was there?” Hannah was surprised. Grandma Knudson hadn’t mentioned that he’d played football.
“Paul was on the junior varsity team. I don’t think he got in more than a few minutes of playing time, but any boy who wore a uniform was there.”
“Tell them about the other boys,” Delores prompted.
“Except for Matthew, Hugh, Adam, and Paul, all the other boys paired up, or went in groups of three or four.”
“And that told the coach something about football?” Delores sounded as dubious as Hannah felt.
“That’s what Coach Telleson said. When the boys came back, he watched the amount of wood they brought, and made certain assumptions from that. He explained what these assumptions were at the time, but I don’t remember now. It probably didn’t make a lot of sense to me.”
“Did Matthew bring back much wood?” Hannah asked.
“He brought back more wood than anyone else, but he came back late.”
“There was a time limit?” Norman asked the question before Hannah could.
“Yes. They had to be back in fifteen minutes. Coach Telleson said the groups started coming in first after they’d been out for thirteen minutes. The paired boys were next, then Paul, and then Adam. Matthew arrived at the twenty-minute mark.”
“How about Hugh?” Hannah asked the obvious question.
“He didn’t come back at all. They found him a ways away, in a stand of birch with a broken leg.”
“Tell them what happened,” Delores urged.
“Hugh said he’d seen Matthew go down the same path, so he’d gone a different way to an area where he thought there’d be more firewood. When he saw that there wasn’t any, he went back to the path that Matthew had taken, hoping that Matthew had left some wood. A little ways down the path, he found the perfect log for the campfire. He headed straight for it and that’s when he fell in a deep hole that was hidden by fallen leaves and broke his leg in two places.”
Hannah was already a step ahead of Doc’s story. “And Hugh blamed Matthew?”
“That’s right. He thought Matthew had dug a deep hole, filled it with fallen leaves to camouflage it, and placed a perfect log just beyond it as bait. And that prompted a real rift in the team. Hugh’s best receiver pointed out that the hole had been there for a while since there were decaying leaves and mud at the bottom from the rain they’d had at the beginning of the week.”
“So Hugh apologized and all was well?”
“No. A couple of the boys had seen Matthew going down that path. They knew that part of Hugh’s story was true. And the hole had been filled to the top with leaves. That probably wouldn’t have happened naturally. Even if Matthew hadn’t dug the hole itself, he might have filled it with leaves and baited it with the log.”
“You said there was a rift,” Hannah pointed out. “Does that mean some of the boys believed that Matthew was innocent?”
“Yes. Coach Telleson did, for one. He told me that Matthew didn’t have it in him to be that mean. And some of the older members of the team agreed with him. The split was about fifty-fifty, but the accusation was almost forgotten when Matthew played brilliantly in the homecoming game and the Gulls beat the Browerville Tigers twenty-eight to three.”
“What do you think?” Delores asked him. “Did Matthew do it?”
“I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. I asked him point blank when he came to visit Hugh in the hospital after the game. Hugh wouldn’t see him, of course. He still believed Matthew had set him up so that he could have the quarterback spot. Matthew told me that he had nothing to do with it, that he’d seen the hole and avoided it and the log hadn’t been there. He insisted that someone must have come along after he’d left, filled the hole in with leaves, and baited it with the log.”
“Who do you think did it?” Delores asked, leaning toward Doc.
“It could have been anyone on the team. Coach Telleson said Hugh had decided he was the greatest thing since the first rhubarb pie, and he had an exaggerated notion of his importance to the team. He seemed to think that without him, they couldn’t win. There were quite a few other players who didn’t like his attitude, especially when he lorded it over them. It could have been any one of them.”
“Or several of them,” Norman suggested.
“True. Maybe one of those groups of three boys started talking about what fun it would be to see Hugh fall in a hole.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t even malicious,” Delores suggested. “They might not have thought it through at all. They just decided to set a trap for him and they never expected him to fall so hard that he would break his leg and be out for the whole season.”
“For the whole year, and then some,” Doc corrected her. “It was a nasty break.”
“If it wasn’t some of the other boys, how about his brother Adam?” Hannah made the suggestion. “Was there a lot of sibling rivalry between Hugh and Adam?”
“It was a lot more than sibling rivalry,” Doc said.
“What do you mean?” Norman asked.
“While Hugh was in the hospital, I heard him fight with Adam. It got pretty vicious, verbally of course, since Hugh was in traction. I felt sorry for Adam. It was clear that Hugh had bullied his younger brother for years. Now that Adam was older, he was beginning to fight back, and I figured no good could come of it.”
“Do you think Adam could have filled in that hole and set the trap for his brother?” Norman followed up.
Doc shrugged. “It’s possible. If Hugh pushed him to the bitter end, Adam could have done it. On the other hand, I don’t know if he had the guts to do it.”
“What happened to Adam? He doesn’t live around here, does he?” Hannah asked.
“Not anymore. Adam earned an academic scholarship to Yale. He went on to another Ivy League school for his master’s and doctorate, and I believe he’s teaching at UCLA. He’s never come back here, and I don’t think he ever will.”
“Did Hugh go to college?” Hannah was curious.
“No. He might have if he’d gotten an athletic scholarship, but after he broke his leg, that was out of the question. It took him a year to recover, and no college coach wanted to take a chance on a quarterback with a pin in his leg.”
“He must have been bitter about that,” Delores ventured.
“Oh, he was. Or maybe I should say, he is. He’s sure that broken leg ruined his life and now he’s saddled with a bad back on top of it.” Doc Knight paused for a sip of his water. “As soon as he recovered, Hugh went to work for the state on a road repair crew. It’s heavy work and it was hard on him physically, but the pay was good and the benefits were great. He only worked on the roads in the summer. The rest of the time he worked in his uncle’s hardware store in St. Cloud. Two years ago, he was working on the road crew, picking up caution markers from the back of a state truck, when he slipped and took a bad fall.”
“And that’s when he hurt his back?” Hannah felt sorry for him in spite of the fact that he didn’t sound like a very nice person.
“That’s right. They did X-rays and performed surgery, but the fix didn’t work. Back surgery’s still risky, especially for a six-foot, two-hundred-thirty-pound guy. I would have warned him against it, but he didn’t ask me. And now he’s living in the family cottage out at Eden Lake, getting state disability.”
“Is he badly injured?” Norman asked, and Hannah knew exactly what was running through his mind. If Hugh blamed Matthew for the origin of all his troubles, he’d have a motive for murder. Was Hugh capable of walking into the church in the middle of the night and killing Reverend Matthew?
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since he came back here to Lake Eden. He’s holed up out there like a hermit, feeling sorry for himself, no doubt. Hugh’s always been good at self-pity. Not that he doesn’t have his cross to bear. He does.”
“Do you think he still hated Matthew enough to kill him for something he thought Matthew did all those years ago?” Hannah asked.
Doc considered that for a long moment and then he nodded. “Oh, yes. In my opinion, Hugh’s not quite right in the head. But I could be wrong. Maybe you two should check him out and see for yourselves.”
PEAR CRUNCH PIE
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F., (that’s a very hot oven,) rack in the middle position.
The Crust:
one 9-inch deep-dish pie shell, unbaked***
The Topping:
1 cup all-purpose flour (Scoop it up in a measuring cup and level it off with a table knife.)
? cup brown sugar (pack it down in the measuring cup)
? teaspoon cinnamon
? teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated is best, but only use 1/8 teaspoon)****
? cup salted butter (1 stick, 4 ounces, ? pound) cut into small pieces
? cup chopped pecans (measure after chopping)
*** - If you’re pressed for time, you can buy a frozen one at your grocery store.
****- Unlike some herbs and spices, freshly grated nutmeg is stronger than dried.
The Filling:
one large (20 and ? ounces) pear halves in syrup OR juice
one small (8 and ? ounces) pear halves in syrup OR juice
? cup white (granulated) sugar
2 Tablespoons (1/8 cup) cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg (half that amount if you use freshly grated)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 and ? cups pear liquid (if you don’t have enough, fill in with water)
1 Tablespoon salted butter (that’s 1/8 of a stick)
1 teaspoon lemon juice (freshly squeezed is best)
You’re going to make the topping first, and that’s easy. In a small bowl (or a food processor with the steel blade) combine the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
If you’re doing this by hand, use your fingers or 2 knives and cut the butter into the flour until it looks like cornmeal. (If you’re using a food processor, use the steel blade and process with an on-and-off motion until the resulting mixture looks like cornmeal.)
Mix in the chopped pecans by hand and set aside on the counter.
Drain the pear halves, but DON’T THROW AWAY THE JUICE. You’ll use it later.
Dry the pear halves thoroughly on paper towels.
On a COLD BURNER, combine the sugar, cornstarch, nutmeg, and salt in a medium-size saucepan. Stir them together until they’re thoroughly combined.
Mix in the pear liquid, stirring it well.
Turn the burner on MEDIUM HIGH.
Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture loses its milky appearance and turns clear. This is a little tricky for anyone who’s not used to working with cornstarch. A good rule of thumb is to heat the mixture, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon or a heat-resistant spatula until it just barely reaches the boil. Set your timer for 5 minutes and keep stirring the entire time. That guarantees you’ve cooked it long enough.
When 5 minutes are up, remove the saucepan from the heat and move it to a cold burner. Stir in the butter and the lemon juice, and let the filling sit there cooling while you work with the pear halves.
Arrange the pear halves, rounded side up, in the bottom of your unbaked pie shell. You don’t have to worry about being too artistic, because the pears will be covered with the crunch topping.
When the pear halves are arranged to your satisfaction, place the pan with the pie shell on a drip pan. (I use a cookie sheet with sides.) Pour the hot pear pudding you just made over the top of the pear halves as evenly as you can.
Give the topping you made earlier a final stir with a fork. Then sprinkle it over the tops of the pear halves as evenly as you can. This will form the sweet “crunch” part of Pear Crunch Pie. Rhanna’s recipe calls for a lot of crunch topping, so heap it on and press it down to form a bumpy, golden brown top crust.
Bake the Pear Crunch Pie at 425 degrees F. for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the topping turns dark golden brown and looks delicious. (In this case looks are NOT deceiving—it’s yummy!)
Yield: Rhanna’s recipe says you can get 8 pieces from this 9-inch pie, but those people must not be big dessert eaters. I always have to make two pies when I invite the family for dinner. Counting Bethany (who’s too little to eat Pear Crunch Pie yet) there are only 7 of us!
Rhanna used to make a slew of these pies for Sally’s Thanksgiving buffet. The Pear Crunch Pies were a great addition to Sally’s wonderful pumpkin pies.