Lanterns and Lace

Chapter 31

Ellen patted General Lee’s head as he nestled against her lap. Evening shadows rested around her with a chorus of insects singing outside the parlor window. She relaxed in a moment of quiet reflection after a busy day with this overgrown animal that followed her about like a puppy. She laughed at his awkward appearance: large, pointed ears, huge feet, and a flat nose like a pig’s.

No one had intended for General Lee to be a part of their home, but the animal displayed such fierce loyalty toward her husband that the elder Kahlers hadn’t much choice. When the couple married, the dog sulked and refused to eat until Frank’s father delivered him to the newlyweds. Strangely enough, General Lee extended his affections and guardianship to Ellen. Right from the beginning of Frank and Ellen’s courtship, the dog had sensed Frank’s devotion to her and quickly made friends. The dog’s loyalty caused family jokes, but Frank claimed he had the best guardian angel in town. When work kept him away from home, Ellen was safe. Folks still felt squeamish since Mrs. Lewis’s passing, but not Ellen. She had General. How she loved that dog, the first pet she’d ever had.

The dog lifted his ears and growled at the front door.

“What is it, General?” Ellen said to the dog for the second time.

She reached over and patted him, noting the tense muscles across his shoulders and back. Feeling a twinge of alarm, she glanced at the clock on the mantel.

Shortly after supper, Frank had gone back to the feed store to catch up on some bookkeeping. He and Ellen planned to take a few days to themselves in another week, and he wanted to make sure the plans for the lumberyard were in order. Since the day they had married, the two had worked from before dawn until after sunset at their regular positions and then picked up paint brushes and tools to finish their home at night. Both were looking forward to a few days together.

“Is anyone there?” The sound of her own voice was laced with a hint of trepidation.

General Lee bolted from the rug near her chair and leaped to the door. He snarled and barked fiercely. Breaking away from Ellen’s hold, he planted himself firmly at the entrance. She watched the dog’s actions with growing apprehension, and her gaze bore holes into the door until she finally stopped shaking long enough to rise from the rocking chair.

“Is someone there? Frank?” She drew in a quick breath, keenly aware that General would not attack his own master. They lived on the outskirts of town, and she feared a cry for help might not be heard.

The door handle turned. Ellen’s heart pounded so hard against her chest that it hurt. General Lee bared his teeth and crouched low to spring on the intruder. Sweet Jesus, I’m afraid.

Her gaze darted helplessly around the room in a frantic search for a weapon. Frank’s shotgun rested against the wall in the kitchen. He didn’t keep it loaded, but she knew where he stored the shells.

She rushed into the kitchen and fell into the corner of the table. Snatching up the shotgun, she stumbled to grasp the box of shells from the kitchen cupboard. In her haste, they tumbled to the floor, rolling everywhere. Ellen scooped up a handful and dropped them into her apron pocket. Her shaking fingers fumbled so that she couldn’t load the gun.

The front door slowly swung open.

General Lee growled and sprang from his stance only to be silenced by the sharp crack of a handgun. She stole a look—the dog’s body twisted and plunged to the floor.

A scream escaped her lips. Devotion cost a dear price.

She stepped back into the living room and clumsily hoisted the heavy shotgun to her shoulder. “Get out, or I’ll blow a hole right through you.” Her voice sounded hollow, or perhaps her terror spoke more bravely than she truly felt.

“I dare say it’s not loaded,” said the calm, quiet voice of Aubrey Turner.

“Yes, it is. I should kill you for what you did to my dog.”

“It’s Frank’s dog, my dear, and your pocket is full of shells. You haven’t had time to load that shotgun, and I doubt if Frank keeps it loaded.”

Ellen raised the weapon higher to reinforce her threat, but he only laughed. His obvious confidence sent a chill to her fingertips. “Frank will be home any minute.” She glared into violet eyes, the ones Jessica had feared and hated. “You’d best get out of here.”

“I beg to differ. I saw him enter the feed store about a half hour ago, and his habit is to work at least two hours.” He moved closer, stepping over General Lee’s still body.

“Not tonight. He only needed to pick up something.” She waved the gun toward his face. If only it were loaded, she’d gladly pull the trigger.

“You should have killed me before I got inside.”

She glanced at General Lee lying in a pool of blood. His head lay twisted to one side where the bullet had torn into his neck. He hadn’t even whimpered. Her shoulders ached from aiming the shotgun at Turner, but before she could contemplate another thought, he snatched the weapon from her trembling hands.

“Frank will never let you get away with this. What do you want?” Hysteria rose from the pit of her stomach.

“He’d have to find me first. In case you didn’t know, I left town. The train conductor will vouch for me getting on board.” He tossed the shotgun aside. The crash echoed across the small home.

Ellen realized she faced the same end as her dog.

Turner’s features twisted into something more distorted and vile than anything she’d ever seen. His malevolent eyes penetrated deep inside her, radiating evil.

“What do you want?” The words barely choked out.

He reached out to seize her, but she instantly shrank back. Her only escape from his clutches was through the back door.

“I want my money.” And for every step she took back, he moved closer.

“What money?” Maybe Frank had enough cash there to pacify him.

Picking up a kitchen chair, he threw it out of his way and continued edging his way toward her. “You know what I mean—the money Jessica stole from me.”

Ellen shivered in the late July heat. Panic seized every part of her body.

“I loved that woman! I loved her with my soul, and she robbed me.”

Ellen lifted her chin in a futile attempt to calm her raging emotions. “I don’t know anything about your money. Jessica never mentioned it.”

He grabbed her chin sharply and savagely pulled her face within inches of his. “Liar, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you value your life, you’ll tell me where it is.”

She tasted the acidity of terror. “I swear I don’t know a thing about any money. All Jessica told me was that she left a man when they didn’t get along.”

Turner’s hands tightened around her jaw. He slid his fingers to her throat. “If I have to squeeze it out of you, I will. I have nothing to lose by killing you or Jenny. And I know you have it, or Jenny wouldn’t have come to this godforsaken hole.”

“I know nothing,” she whispered as his hands slowly cut off her air.

“Then why did you have her sister come all the way out here?”

“I didn’t.”

His crimson face blazed fire. “Liar. You two planned to split my money. I’m sure of it.” With the intensity of each word, his hold tightened around her neck. “Tell me where I can find my money, and I won’t kill you.”

When she failed to respond, he slapped her soundly across the face with his other hand. Madness reigned in his eyes—a wild, uncontrollable rage.

O God, help me.

“Tell me,” he said through clenched teeth.

Ellen knew if she could utter a word, it would be to no avail. His anger soared beyond reason. Her knees buckled against the force of his body. She fell to the floor. A sharp stab of pain ripped through the back of her head. The pressure of his hand tightened around her throat, and she felt herself struggling desperately for air. A wicked grin spread across his face, one of triumph and control. Pain and blackness threatened to engulf her, and she resisted until the prevailing darkness finally swept her under its control.

*****

Hours after Jenny had walked home from supper without telling Grant good-bye, he still wondered why she’d left without telling him or Rebecca good-bye. He’d been busy with the children, but he’d have gladly walked her home. Perhaps Martha had upset her or she was concerned about the news of Turner heading to Ohio. Even now, Grant berated himself for his stupidity. Jenny needed to agree to stay here and marry him. He wanted to ask her tonight—this instant—but the words would flounder from his mouth like a fish out of water. She may very well despise him, but he thought he’d seen something akin to love in her eyes.

He crumpled another sheet of paper and tossed it into a metal can beside his desk. The receptacle was nearly full. Jessica’s journal tormented him worse than a case of chicken pox in July. Tonight he’d spent every spare minute searching its pages for the secrets hidden between its cover, and he’d become obsessed with finding the answers. Frustrated, Grant didn’t know if his fixation lay in finding the money itself or in the fact that Jenny had placed it into his hands, confident he could unravel it.

His mind lingered on Jessica’s instability. For certain, he’d not let a single symptom appearing in Rebecca slip by him. Lord, keep my little daughter safe and free from the demons that besieged her mother.

Grant opened the heavy double doors to his office and made his way through the darkened house to the kitchen. He refused to go to bed until he solved the riddle of the journal, but he needed some coffee to help him stay awake. His stomach ached from eating far too much licorice while he worked tonight. He, the doctor, should have shoved the bag back into his desk drawer. His lips were probably the color of coal. With a sigh, he rekindled the cookstove, and soon the fresh coffee’s nutty aroma filled the kitchen.

Mimi would be proud of me taking care of myself. His housekeeper had retired to her room shortly after the two of them had tucked Rebecca into bed.

His little daughter seemed troubled this evening. She said Aunt Jenny had gotten dirt in her eyes and it made her cry, so he and Rebecca prayed for her. To Grant, that explanation sounded like Jenny had been avoiding telling Rebecca the truth. What had happened to make her cry? He ran his fingers through his hair. Martha’s dislike for Jenny flashed across his mind. Irritated, he intended to speak to Martha in the morning—should have done so tonight. The woman may have escaped a tragedy, but that did not excuse ill treatment of Jenny. His Jenny. Shaking his head, he grasped the handle of the coffeepot with a towel and carried it back to his office.

Grant pulled the opened journal from the top of his desk and reread the last entry. Always his attention focused on this short passage. Surely her words of money for Jenny weren’t written to confuse her sister—or an ugly joke contrived during one of her maddening episodes. Well, he couldn’t discount the validity of Jessica’s words until he exhausted all of his efforts.

Flipping through the pages, he looked to see if anything was missing or torn. Every page appeared intact. The key to resolving the issue lay in mathematics, but what form or how?

Grant took a huge gulp of his hot coffee and sputtered as it burned his tongue. Upset with himself for not figuring out the code and upset with Jessica for creating it, he set the coffee down and pulled out a blank sheet of paper from inside his middle desk drawer. Leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes. What if he were a child playing school and fancied arithmetic? How might he present a numbered code to a younger sister?

First, he looked to see if Jessica’s birthday, January 22, 1870, corresponded to pages one, twenty-two, eighteen, or seventy in the journal. When Grant saw nothing that looked unusual, he released a heavy sigh.

In attempting to recall Jenny’s birthday, he remembered Jessica had written something special to her on that day. After leafing through several pages, he found the date: November 12, 1873. He turned to the matching journal entries of eleven, twelve, and seventy-three. But his hunch proved wrong.

He drummed his pen habitually on the desk, aggravated at his own inability to decipher Jessica’s code. Nevertheless, it challenged him, and he couldn’t put it aside.

Lord, if You want me to solve this riddle, please show me. I don’t know what to do with it. I’m frustrated, but I don’t feel that You want me to give up.

A thought occurred to him. Grant wrote the alphabet across the top of his paper. Beneath each letter he assigned a corresponding number, with the letter A receiving a one and the letter Z, a twenty-six. For the next hour he matched up Jessica’s name, Jenny’s name, Cleveland, Ohio, Kahlerville, Texas, and many other words and phrases that might provide a clue, but none of it made any sense. He found the letters could repeat themselves and yet form nothing sensible.

This idea isn’t any better than the others. I’m a fool to keep working. I should give up, at least for tonight.

Taking a deep breath, he studied the last page of the journal one more time and smiled at the mention of the lilac tree. It seemed to be a favorite childhood memory for both girls. He sat straighter in his chair. Unless Jessica wrote about it for a specific purpose. A renewed enthusiasm drove him back to the journal.

Grant copied “beneath the lilac tree” on a clean sheet of paper. He assigned the letters with matching numbers. His original method hadn’t made sense, just as before, but this time he couldn’t bring himself to destroy his work.

Beneath had seven letters. Page seven of the journal revealed nothing. Grant totaled the numbers given to each letter of the word. It added up to fifty-five. He turned to that entry. A tingle of excitement spurred him. The word first was underlined. Nervously, he totaled the numbers of the letters in the word the, and it equaled thirty-three. On page thirty-three he saw the word national with a distinct line under it. Lilac added up to thirty-seven, and on that page he saw the word bank in a different color ink. Taking a deep breath, he totaled the word tree, and on page forty-eight, Jessica had faintly selected Houston. First National Bank of Houston. Grant silently repeated, First National Bank of Houston.

“I’ve figured out the journal,” he whispered. “I can’t believe it, but this is the code.” Glancing at the clock on his desk, he saw the hour approached ten. Realizing the lateness required a certain amount of silence, he instantly hushed. His findings must wait until morning. Jenny would be so pleased. She had claimed he could decipher it, but he really had his doubts.

Thank You, Lord. He leaned back in his chair and allowed satisfaction to roll over him. Not that Rebecca would have money for her future, but that Jenny believed he could decipher the journal.

Grant lifted the coffee to his lips. Jessica’s method of concealing the money had been nothing more than child’s play. Yet both he and Jenny had found her code nearly impossible. Now, finding the name listed on the account should be easy, certainly simpler than where the money had been hidden.

Propping his feet on the desk, he felt decisively wonderful—and pleased. Turner had left town, and Jenny needed to stay. Perhaps she not only feared for herself but for her parents, too. Grant couldn’t offer her much of a future if he couldn’t place the root of her fears in jail. First thing in the morning, he’d visit Ben and Morgan. Hopefully one of them had turned up something on Turner. Afterward he planned to stop by the boardinghouse and present Jenny with the journal’s findings. The wording of a marriage proposal flashed in and out of his mind.

The sound of someone frantically shouting his name broke his reverie. Alerted, he sprang from his desk and took long strides toward the entrance of his home. This could only be an emergency.