New Growth (Spook Hills Trilogy Book 2) (12 page)

He surprised her by his offer to take her into the business.
 
While Rick thought her capable, she found
herself to be woefully inadequate.

“What will your children say?” Callie asked.

“Over the past year, I proposed this deal to each of
them.
 
Neither one wanted to work with
their
old man for modest remuneration while
betting on the future.
 
I gave them a
chance, but they declined.
 
End of
story.”

Callie remembered Mathew asking her the question about what
Callie wanted.
 
While John Henry’s
disdain had eroded her sense of self-worth, Rick presented her an opportunity
to earn her way into this business.
 
His
astuteness at making money meant he based this proposal on more than
sentimental reasons.
 

She turned to her uncle and smiled.
 
The day seemed to brighten around her. “Yes,
definitely yes.
 
Why are you so good to
me?”

“You mean so much to me, you could be my daughter, even
though you are my brother’s child.
 
I
vowed to look after
you,
but I did a damn
poor job of it letting you stay married to John Henry.
 
Finding out about the living hell of your
life with that man made me angry with myself.
 
Time for me to help the sun to shine on you.”

He moved away from her to blow his nose loudly.
 
“Now before I am blubbering like an idiot,
let’s shake hands on this.
 
Next week,
our attorney will draw up the papers and numbers for you to peruse.
 
Callie, having you and Susannah come back
home makes
me
and Sassy relieved for you
both.
 
We are so happy to have you with
us.”

Mathew walked around his acreage with Fred, making sure
the second year plants continued to grow trained and tied, nipping off any
undesired
shoots
as they went.
 
After
the leaves
turned
and fell, he would
schedule a small crew for cleanup and the last cultivation for the season.
  
Come
November
they
would prune according to the Guyot system of cane pruning they had
elected to use.
 
Fred vigilantly was
keeping the grass between the rows mowed and the edges trimmed, recruiting
Lenny for those two jobs as well.
 

As they turned to go down the southwest
border
of the property, a cigarette stub lay
tossed into the dirt at the end of a row of grapevines.
 
He caught Fred by the arm and bent down to
peer closer at the footprints.
 
Someone
stood here for some time, packing the earth solid under their feet.
 
All around the soil fell loose and cultivated
along the line of roots.
 
He edged over
to the verge, his eyes going up the rows to the
distant
back of Steve’s house.
 
Even when he
squatted down to be eye-level with the big grape leaves, the house stayed in
sight.
 
A person crouched here could do
reconnaissance
from a well-hidden position
.
 

“More cigarettes?” Fred asked.
 
“Walk perimeter?”

Mathew nodded, pulled out his cellphone and took a
photo.
 
Using a grape leaf to protect it,
he pocketed the twisted butt, dark black with a gold filter, evidently a brand
called Sobranie Black Russian.
 
“Keep
looking for more footprints where someone hovered.
 
These are recent.
 
We’ll eyeball the vines as we search.”

They found cigarette butts at three more spots, each giving
different perspectives on Steve’s house.
 
The intruder did not seem to care about keeping his snooping
clandestine.
 
Turkish Djarums and
Sobranie Black Russians
were not commonly smoked
.
 
When they walked past the tree house, a chair
sat cockeyed where someone had scooted it across the decking for a clear view
of the
house
at Spook Hills.
 
The hairs prickled on the back of Mathew’s
head.
 

These findings showed that the incident in August had not
been a fluke.
 
What did this person want
to discover and who was he?

“The man’s arrogance and greed astound me,” Rick shouted
into the speakerphone at their attorney.
 
“He wants Callie to recompense him for drying out, buy him a condo and
give him an allowance for two years?
 
He
is crazy.”
 

Callie sat across from him, dumbfounded by John Henry’s
demands, holding her face in her hands with her elbows resting on Rick’s
desk.
 
Her hair formed a dark, silken
tent around her head.

“I don’t understand,” she said, raising her head and
struggling not to scream about John Henry’s demands.
 
“T
he
University employed him
, but he didn’t even give me enough money for our
living expenses.
 
I paid for our house,
the maintenance and the taxes using my inheritance.
 
Because of Susannah, I didn’t work.”

The attorney’s voice came on slow and even.
 
“
Your husband
is claiming mental anguish made
him
seek
solace in alcohol.”

“Bullshit.
 
He
browbeat my niece for years,” Rick said, his
voice edged in bitterness.
 
“He should be
compensating her a substantial monthly stipend and child support for
Susannah.
 
He allowed Callie the bare
minimum for food, clothing, and the house.”

“He cheated on me,” Callie said in a small voice.

“Do you have proof?”

“The FBI said he encountered his cousin at a place where they
offer prostitutes and drugs.
 
It was
where his cousin accrued gambling and other debts with the gangsters who
snatched Susannah.”

“Good, gives me a negotiating point.
 
Callie, we can drag this out and put you in a
potentially embarrassing position in court or negotiate a compromise.”

“I will not obligate myself to alimony,” Callie said, the
firmness in her voice surprising her.
 
She
would no longer
pander to her
husband.
 
“As you know, I received a good
offer on the house the day it went on the market.
 
The buyers want to move
fast.
 
I
t
should close next
month.
 
I will
realize
some capital gains on it.
 
Part of that
can go to John Henry for a down payment on a condominium.
 
I want the funds restricted to that use.”

“We can stipulate your constraint and establish an escrow
account to manage any disbursements,” the attorney said.

“Start at $20,000.
 
You can go as high as $40,000.
 
The nine miserable years I agonized through with that
man
were enough.
 
I want the misery dissolved quickly.”

“What about visiting rights?”

Callie hesitated out of embarrassment to speak of her
concern in front of Rick.
 
She took a
deep breath, measuring her words carefully. “I am worried about Susannah
staying with him without me.
 
He can be
belittling and outright nasty, but he never hurt her
physically.
 
Even though
I
don’t think he is into children, his tastes in sex verge on depraved.”

“Damn pervert.
 
What
does Susannah want?”
 
Rick asked, his
face contorting as he struggled to choke back his anger with John Henry.

“She’s all mixed
up.
 
S
he’s afraid to go back to San
Francisco because of the kidnapping.
 
One
day we will help her face that fear but not yet,” Callie said.
 
“Can we do phone calls only for six months to
let her recover?
 
After that spending
time with her father should be up to her unless he
fails to stay sober, then no
time with her at all.
 
I want him to fund Susannah’s education.
 
He must put $10,000 a year into an
interest-bearing escrow account for her from now until she is 21.”

“That is it.
 
We will
not pay one more cent to that
greedy
bastard,” Rick said in a voice demanding no conciliation.

They ended the call after thanking their lawyer.
 
Rick said, “Your proposal is better than John
Henry deserves.”

“Now that I left John Henry, I want the divorce over.
 
I want to start again.”

Rick nodded and said, “I felt the same way about my first
wife.
 
While she lacked John Henry’s
greediness, conceit or wickedness, she always mucked around until she found the
negatives in every situation, casting gloom around her like so much stinking
manure.
 
When Sassy danced into my life,
I realized my humdrum existence could become fun.
 
I gave a more generous settlement than
necessary to end my first marriage.”

Callie had to smile at how her Uncle Rick characterized his
two very different marriages where one wife cast
despair
and one radiated light.
 
She barely remembered his first wife and had seen her only briefly once
or twice after their divorce.
 

“Even so, I don’t think my first wife ever forgave me for
moving on, building my businesses and making a dream life with Sassy,” Rick
said.
 
“I never regretted paying her that
money or supporting my kids.
 
Doing the
right thing will let you live more contentedly, even if you find the terms
irksome at first.”

“I don’t want my work here or what you offered me disclosed
to John Henry,” Callie said.

“Me either.
 
We’ll
keep our partnership between you, me, Sassy and our lawyer.
 
I will reinforce this point with him.”

She smiled at her uncle and grabbed her car keys to
leave.
 
“After I pick up Susannah
from school,
together we’ll go over the bins
and equipment for harvest.
 
Did those new
vine cutters come in?”

“Box is in the garage.
 
Better oil up the old ones too.”

“I’m glad you’re letting Mathew and Steve learn from
us.
 
Working here on harvest is the best
way.”

“Least we can do,” Rick said as he left his office with
Callie.
 
“We owe them big time for
bringing Susannah back.
 
Mathew risked
his life when he went to rescue
her.
 
Steve used his considerable influence
to work out the logistics with the FBI.”

“Mathew is the inverse of John Henry – brave, kind and a man
of action without any egotistical fanfare,” Callie said, her voice becoming a
little dreamy.

“Odd dudes in their way, Mathew and Steve.
 
Worthy men, each of
th
em.
 
Men
who
no one
can buy
, bully or persuade to act against their principles.”

“Like you.”

Rick squared his shoulders at her faith in him.
 
Her memories of her parents were becoming
increasingly distant.
 
She sometimes
wondered how like her father Uncle Rick was.
 
In her memory, they were very alike and very close as brothers.
 
As an only child, she used to wish for
siblings.
 
Now she would have to hope
that Susannah would one day have a younger sister or brother.

Mathew clicked off his phone after his mother called him,
asking him to lunch when she traveled
through
Portland the next day.
 
As usual
she left him mystified and with a
sense of inadequacy that he had somehow botched her expectations for a
son.
 
She had pushed him away even as a
child, or she had absented herself from his life when she traveled to
sponsor benevolent
programs in various parts of
the world.
 

Inclined to be stiff and a little distant, his father had
seemed puzzled by how to relate to his son.
 
As Mathew grew up, his Dad tried to be
supportive,
but he always traveled many weeks each year looking after his business empire
,
a pace he continued until he died of cancer three years ago

His mother had held herself away from him, detached and
cold.
 
As he
grew older, Mathew was finding he missed his dad and wished he still lived to
talk with him the way he did with Steve.

The following morning Mathew left a little early after
dressing with care in what he called dressy casual – jeans, an open-necked tattersall
shirt and a
navy linen
blazer worn with
buffed mahogany loafers.
 
He
drove the half hour up to the city and
parked near the Heathman Hotel where he reserved a table.
 
While he waited, he sipped a micro-brewed
pale ale, impatient to hear if his mother wanted to spend time with him or if
she was undertaking
a mere
duty
visit.
 
Despite her habitual pushing him
away, the little lonesome boy inside him still needed her love.
 

Shortly after noon, his mother walked in, tall and willowy
with her long auburn hair swept up under a hat.
 
She appeared marvelously chic even when
casually attired.
 
Now in her
mid-sixties, she remained an attractive woman, even if too severely dressed and
thin to be called beautiful.
 
She
suffered through a kiss on the cheek from him, dashing his hope of her wanting
to see him.
 
He never remembered her
hugging him or giving him even a peck on the forehead.
 
Even as a boy the most regard he might
receive from her was
a hand
placed on his
shoulder which she quickly whisked away.
  

“Mother, as
good to see you
as ever,” Mathew said, pulling out a chair for her.
 
Even though she remained cold to him, the
compliment was sincere.
 
He did love her.

She made no reply as she sat down opposite him and took off
her sunglasses.
 
She skimmed the menu and
signaled for the waiter, cutting off Mathew’s attempt at hospitality.
 

“Bottle of sparkling mineral water, chilled, no ice.
 
You may bring me the Caesar salad with
grilled prawns.
 
Vinaigrette on the side
and cheese on the side.”
 

Mathew ordered the more ample turkey club with sweet potato
fries.
 
He asked about her trip where she
fostered an effort to convey more water to African
farmers,
and he inquired about her home in the Dolomites.
 
She answered his questions sparingly before
asking
about his life on the
vineyard
.

“Mathew when you left the FBI, I hoped you would apply your
father’s fortune to impactful measures,” she said.
 
“With people starving all over the world, you
could do so much good with his assets.”

“I am working
on an idea
to help Hispanic immigrants better assimilate into the American culture.”

“Why?”

“We have a young fellow born in Mexico working for us.
 
His name is
Fred.
 
H
e is not yet twenty-one, but he is
bright and a fast learner.
 
Already he
can supervise work crews on the vineyard better than most veterans.
 
Fred really should go to college and get a
degree.
 
His father
worked for
us for a time on the work crew
building Steve’s house.
 
His name is
Federico.
 
He seems
really bright
too, but his English language
skills are limited.
 
I think if he had
been able to learn English when he first moved here, he could run his own
business or be a foreman in construction.
 

“
M
ost of our work
crews are Hispanic and less than half of them speak English.
 
I have been learning Spanish, but I often
have to rely on Fred to translate for me.

“To earn a decent income, the Hispanic workers need to break
away from menial labor.
 
Their children
need to attend school on a regular schedule, which is hard when they are
migrants.
 
I want to give them the chance
to achieve their dreams of a better life.”

She flapped her hand dismissively.
 
“We will never agree on what is meaningful,
not when people are starving and dying of dreadful diseases.
 
However
right now I want to talk with you about another topic.”

“Is something wrong?” Mathew asked.
 
Her demeanor was
different,
and he noticed that she looked more stressed than usual.

“The underpinnings of our relationship are false.
 
I am about to explain why.”
 
She stopped speaking and took a sparing drink
of water.
 
“I know I never gave what you
required from a mother.
 
You wanted more
from me than I could find in myself to give.
 
You
should be aware
of why.