Talk of the Town (10 page)

Clothilda clearly was a churchgoer. She looked at ease and was warm and friendly with everyone to whom they introduced her on the way to the service. To whom
Ethel
introduced her, Alice corrected herself, amused. Her aunt had taken over the supervision of their guest with the same zeal she threw into any project she approached. Alice suspected their only problem might be making sure Clothilda had time to rest during her stay at the inn.

When the service ended, Alice introduced Maxwell to several people. She was surprised at how many additional people he greeted. Apparently, he’d been spending quite a bit of time around town and had made many acquaintances.

“Sylvia,” Alice said as she spied Sylvia Songer near the door. “It’s nice to see you up and about.”

“It’s nice to be back on my feet,” Sylvia told her. “That flu was no fun. Except, of course, for the meals Jane brought over.”

Louise came up behind Alice and greeted Sylvia. Then she said apologetically, “Alice, if we’re going to Potterston, we must leave soon. I have a rehearsal for the Easter cantata at three.” Louise had agreed to play for and help direct the Easter cantata and she was a bit nervous about managing the challenging music and directing a choir at the same time.

“Of course,” Alice said, taking her leave of Sylvia. “Is Jane ready to go?”

Louise indicated the road leading back to the inn. “She went ahead to make us a light lunch to take along.”

“What about Maxwell?”

Louise eyed the young man, who was chatting with Kenneth Thompson, Grace Chapel’s pastor. “I think he will be fine on his own. He has met an amazing number of people.”

“And Clothilda is lunching with Ethel, so I suppose we are free to go.”

Just then, a woman holding a young child by the hand dropped a large tote bag she had been carrying. Papers, books and crayons flew every which way. The child began to cry.

As the sisters watched, Maxwell turned and went to the woman’s side, kneeling to pick up the scattered items as the harried mother thanked him profusely.

“
Hmm
,” said Louise. “Looks like church was good for Maxwell.”

Alice chuckled and agreed.

As one, the two sisters turned and walked back to the inn, where Jane already had lunch packed in a cooler and had brought Louise’s car around to the kitchen door.

“Your car is the largest and most comfortable,” Jane informed Louise, “so I volunteered you to drive.”

“You’re too kind,” said Louise as she slipped behind the wheel.

After a visit with Penelope Smeal, the sisters left to search for Wendell. The drive to Potterston was a quiet one. Jane opened bottles of water for everyone, and then passed around sandwiches, a bag of raw vegetables and a container of the decadently delicious crème-de-menthe brownies she had saved from Mrs. Smeal’s batch. Louise opted to wait until she had parked before eating, but Alice and Jane went ahead and ate so that they would be able to start their search as soon as possible.

When Louise pulled into the gas station where Wendell had last been seen, the sisters grew quiet.

Finally, Alice said, “It’s only been five days but it feels like forever that he’s been missing.”

“I know,” said Jane in a subdued tone. “But maybe today will be the day we find him.”

Sadly, her hope did not bear fruit. Though the sisters fanned out and combed every inch of the neighborhood surrounding the gas station, Wendell did not appear. Worse, no one they encountered had seen a cat answering to his description.

“It’s as if he vanished into thin air,” Jane said sadly as they reluctantly climbed back into Louise’s car and made the trip home. Though none of them said it out loud, there was an unspoken understanding that this probably was their final trip to search the site of the escape. If Wendell hadn’t heard them and responded in the many hours they’d been searching, it was unlikely that he was in the area.

Alice worked the night shift again on Monday evening to fill in for a nurse who had gone into labor several weeks early during her own shift. As she grew older, Alice found night shift work draining. Her body did not seem to appreciate the odd hours and unreliable sleep schedule that she followed when she worked nights.

She was tired when she came home shortly after 8:00
AM
Tuesday, but she had to smile at the sight of Jane, Ethel and Clothilda in the living room with papers, maps and who-knew-what-else scattered around them. The three women were chattering like magpies, laughing and talking over each other in both German and English. Alice was amused to think that Ethel was the only one of the three who had any idea what both of the others were saying.

“What’s going on in here?” she asked, pausing in the doorway.

“Good morning, Alice. Come in,” Ethel invited. “Clothilda is pursuing some genealogical puzzles while she is here, and Jane and I have volunteered to help her.”

“Oh? What kinds of puzzles?” She entered the room and perched on the arm of the sturdy burgundy chair in which Jane sat.

“Clothilda is looking for living relatives of her husband’s family, the Moellers,” Ethel explained.

“Moeller? One of my coworkers at the hospital is a Moeller,” Alice said. She spelled the name and Jane nodded. “That’s it.”

“It’s her married name,” Alice went on, “but I could ask her if her husband knows anything about his ancestors.”

“There’s a Moeller family in Acorn Hill too, I think,” Jane said. “Not long after I came home, I met a lady named Elspeth Moeller. We worked together on a project for a craft fair.”

“Oh yes,” Alice said. “I forgot about those Moellers. I wonder if they’re related to the Potterston Moellers.”

“I’m sure we will learn that as we go along,” Ethel said, “but now Clothilda would like to trace the ancestors who made the first trip from Germany to America. She knows they booked passage on a ship coming into the Port of Philadelphia, and that many of the immigrants from that particular group settled near Potterston.”

“In other words, they could have settled in Acorn Hill,” Jane said. “Look at this, Alice. Clothilda’s family emigrated from Germany to America in the middle of the eighteenth century. She has records from the manifest of the ship they boarded, and a translation of a letter written by her nine-or-so-times-great-grandfather before he left. And these pages are copies from a family Bible that is over two hundred years old.”

“We want to visit the Potterston Historical Society,” Ethel said, “and possibly find some Moeller graves in the old farm cemeteries around the area.”

“I’ve volunteered to drive,” Jane said. “I think this is absolutely fascinating.” What she didn’t say was that she had little choice, since Clothilda did not feel comfortable driving in the United States, and Ethel had never acquired a license, a fact the sisters found mind-boggling. Ethel had been a farm wife and, at the very least, she might have driven a tractor, but Ethel swore she’d never been behind a wheel in her life. She appeared to be quite happy with that state of affairs. Of course, now she had Louise, Alice, Jane, her longtime beau Lloyd Tynan and a plethora of friends to chauffeur her whenever she desired.

“We’re going to start Wednesday,” said Ethel, ever the organizer, “and we’ll go to the Potterston Historical Society first. Then, perhaps, we’ll search some of the local cemeteries for headstones bearing the Moeller name.”

“Sounds as if you three have your excursion well under control,” Alice said.

Just then, the telephone rang. Jane made a move to stand but Alice popped up from the arm of the chair. “No, you go ahead and finish your discussion. I’ll answer it.” She walked into the hallway and picked up the phone at the reception desk. “Grace Chapel Inn, this is Alice. May I help you?”

“
Uh
, yeah. My name’s Trace Harnish. You got a pencil so you can write this down?”

“Certainly.” Alice reached for a pen and pad and dutifully noted the name. “Would you like to make a reservation at the inn, Mr. Harnish?”

“No.” He guffawed. “I live right over in Potterston. I seen the ad about your lost cat and I called to tell you to mail me the reward. I found him this morning and took him by the animal shelter.”

“You found Wendell?” Alice hardly could believe her ears. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Harnish. This is wonderful news. What’s your address?”

He reeled off the information. “You think you can get that in the mail today?”

“I’ll do my best.” Alice was nearly too happy to speak. “Thank you so much. I’m going over to get him right now.”

“Then you can drop that reward in the mail on the way,” he remarked, chuckling.

“God bless you, Mr. Harnish,” she said. “Good-bye.”

She put down the phone and practically sprinted back into the living room. “Jane! Come on! I just got a call from a man who found Wendell.”

“What? Where? Is he all right?” Jane sprang to her feet and began to dash across the room. Then she turned back to Clothilda and Ethel. “I’m so sorry, but I have to go with Alice to get our cat.”

“Go, go.” Ethel made shooing motions. “We’re fine.”

Alice and Jane rushed out of the house and raced to Alice’s car. Alice had to remind herself to drive sensibly and carefully, when she really wanted to floor the gas pedal all the way to the animal shelter, which was located on the near edge of Potterston.

Chapter Nine

A
lice and Jane didn’t speak much on the way to the shelter. When they arrived, Alice barely had the car in park before they were out of their seats and hurrying toward the door.

Jane pulled open the heavy door, and Alice preceded her inside.

“Good morning,” Alice said, clearing her tight throat. “We’re here to pick up our cat. We received a call that he was just brought in.”

The woman behind the counter wore a name tag that said Luella. A puzzled look crossed her face. “You received a call from us? I didn’t call you. Maybe the director did.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, that’s not what I meant,” Alice said quickly. “A man called. He had seen our cat Wendell on a poster and he said that he brought Wendell to the shelter.”

“Ah.” Luella smiled. “Let me go check. He wouldn’t be in the cat room yet because new animals are quarantined for a time.” She rose from her seat and disappeared through a door marked “Staff Only.”

Alice and Jane looked around. There was a fat orange tabby cat lying on top of a file cabinet in the office area with the longest tail Alice had ever seen languidly draped down the side. A huge tank with a turtle the size of a dinner plate swimming around in it occupied one wall in a waiting area with several chairs. Another door bore a sign that read, “Cat Rooms,” with an arrow beneath it pointing to the right, and “Dog Kennels,” with an arrow pointing left.

Jane read Alice’s mind. As her sister took a step in the direction of the door, Jane caught the back of her pale yellow polo shirt. “Oh, no you don’t. We are not taking home any new pets.”

Alice turned back, smiling sheepishly. “I only wanted to look.”

“
Uh-huh
. That’s what they all say.”

Just then the door from the staff area opened. Alice and Jane turned around to see a new face.

“Hi. I’m Erica Tremane, the executive director. Luella tells me you think your cat has been brought in.”

Alice nodded eagerly, prepared to tell her tale again.

But the woman forestalled her. “What does it look like?”

“It’s a gray tabby with four white paws and a black tip on its tail. I brought in a flyer with a picture on it last week.”

Erica sighed. She took a piece of paper from the top of a file cabinet. “This one?”

“Yes.” Jane identified it immediately. “That’s Wendell.”

Erica cleared her throat. “I’m afraid we don’t have your cat.”

“Oh, but Mr. Harnish said he brought him in a short while ago—”

Erica was shaking her head. “A man named Harnish did surrender a cat about two hours ago, and it is a gray tabby. But it’s not your Wendell.”

“How can you be sure?” Jane asked. “Does it have white paws?”

“Yes.” The executive director beckoned. “Come with me, and I’ll let you see for yourselves.”

“Oh, thank you.” Alice and Jane followed Erica down a short hallway past doors on the left and right. “This is the quarantine room for new cats,” the woman explained, indicating a door on the left, “and for dogs.” She pointed at the door opposite but continued to a second pair of doors on the right and left. “Our grooming area is over there and this is the office and lab,” she said as she turned right into the room.

Alice glimpsed two cages stacked one on top of the other along the wall.

Erica led them to the cages and pointed to the topmost one. “This is the cat that was just brought in.”

Alice peered into the cage, hoping against hope that it was Wendell. But one look quickly confirmed Erica’s statement. In the cage was a beautiful gray tabby that looked a lot like Wendell, right down to the four white paws. But this cat had a white tip on its tail. More importantly, it was nursing a set of tiny black kittens and purring contentedly as she blinked at the newcomers.

“Oh.” Jane had seen the mother cat also. Her voice broke as she said, “Not Wendell.”

Alice placed an arm around Jane’s shoulders, though she, too, felt like crying. “Thank you for your time,” she said to Erica, “and for your patience.”

“It’s all right,” the executive director said kindly. “Seeing is believing. I’d have wanted to be sure if he were mine.” She led the way out to the public area in front of the desk again. “I’ll keep your poster,” she said, indicating the flyer she’d laid on the desk, “and I promise we’ll call right away if your kitty comes in. Don’t give up. Maybe he’ll find his way home.”

“From Potterston to Acorn Hill?” Jane asked. “He jumped from a car.”

“Stranger things have happened,” the woman said. “Animals have an uncanny ability to find their way home.”

“Thank you,” Alice said again. She and Jane returned to the car and slowly got in. Alice drove home with no urge to rush this time.

When she turned in to the inn’s driveway, Louise was standing on the front porch, her face alight.

Jane slid down in the seat. “This is terrible. How are we going to tell her it wasn’t Wendell?”

Alice sighed. “I’ll do it if you’ll put the car away.” She braked and put the car in park. Getting out, she walked across the lawn toward Louise while Jane came around to the driver’s side.

Alice could see the exact moment when her less-than-excited demeanor registered with Louise.

“Oh no.” Louise sank down onto the top step, uncharacteristically disregarding the possibility of getting dirt on her good skirt. “What happened? Is he dead?”

Alice was startled. “No, no, nothing like that. It wasn’t Wendell, after all.”

“But Aunt Ethel told me—”

“Yes. A man called and told us he’d found Wendell and taken him to the shelter. But when we got there, the cat was a female with two kittens. She did look like Wendell, but there is no way that man really thought he’d found our male cat. I suspect he was hoping I’d put the reward money in the mail before I ever went to the shelter.”

“What a miserable person,” Louise said indignantly. “How could anyone do that?”

Alice just shook her head and sighed. “We were so hopeful.”

The two of them sat on the steps until Jane came around the corner of the house.

“You heard,” she said unnecessarily to Louise.

Louise nodded. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, both of you.”

“If I ever meet that man—what was his name, anyway, Alice?” Jane asked ominously.

“I don’t remember.” Alice said a quick prayer that God would forgive her little white lie. But she didn’t think chasing down Trace Harnish and chewing him out would accomplish much. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“You’re right.” Louise rose from the step and brushed off her skirt. “We just have to accept the fact that Wendell’s gone.”

“I’m not accepting it yet,” Jane said vehemently. “He might still come home. The woman at the shelter said she’s heard of other animals finding their way home.”

Alice sighed. “I’m not going to put too much faith in that, Jane. Louise is right. We need to accept it. Wendell isn’t with us anymore.”

Jane had tears in her eyes as she regarded her sisters. “I’m not ready to accept it yet,” she said stubbornly. “He’s a smart cat. We might find him yet.” She started up the steps. “I need to return some telephone calls about reservations before lunch.”

Alice sighed as the screen door banged a little bit in Jane’s wake. “I wish I could turn back the clock, don’t you?”

Louise took a breath that sounded suspiciously like a stifled sob. “Oh, you have no idea how much I would love that.” Slowly, she turned to follow Jane inside. “Let’s have some lunch. After that, I’m going to the piano. I do have some practicing to do, and playing always soothes me when I’m upset.”

“I think I’ll walk to the library after we eat,” Alice said. “I have two books to return.” She followed Louise into the house. “Let’s try to get Jane to sit down with us for a few minutes.”

The walk that afternoon did Alice good. Although she still was sad, some of the anger and frustration from the recent experience faded with the exercise.

“Hello, Alice,” Nia Komonos said in a low voice as Alice entered the cool, hushed atmosphere of the library.

“Good afternoon, Nia.” Alice checked her watch. “I can’t believe it’s ten after two. Goodness, where did the day go?”

Nia laughed, her glossy dark hair shining as she moved her head. “I know that feeling. I’m usually so busy I’m astounded when I glance at my watch. Half the time I forget to eat lunch, and I carry home the one I packed in the morning and have it for dinner.”

Alice slid her books onto the counter. “I’m returning these.”

“Thank you. What would you like to read next? I just got several new bestsellers that are fabulous and I—”

“What on earth is that?”

Nia stopped talking as she glanced in the direction Alice was pointing. “Oh, that? I’m putting a new display in the case.”

“Yes, but—”

“I know, I know. Bigfoot is probably just a myth. But the whole idea is an excellent springboard for a display on fantastic creatures. I found a wonderful nonfiction children’s book about Bigfoot. And of course, there are all kinds of stories about Nessie, the Loch Ness monster. I have the DVD of
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
to go along with the Yeti references since the Abominable Snowman—a Yeti, by another name—chases Rudolph in the movie, and of course there are dozens of books about creatures like dragons and griffins and unicorns.” She drew in a breath and rushed on. “And this seemed the perfect opportunity to showcase C. S. Lewis’
Chronicles of Narnia
.”

Alice was still staring at the display case, which Nia had decorated with huge cardboard footprints; several enlarged illustrations of oversized, hairy creatures with long arms; and a huge banner asking, HAVE YOU SEEN BIGFOOT?

“You don’t really believe there’s a creature like that running around here, do you?”

Nia chuckled again, her dark eyes twinkling. “You never know. Oh, Alice, of course not,” she added when she saw Alice’s expression. “But it’s exactly the kind of excitement that brings people—young people, in particular—into the library to research things in the stacks and on the Internet. I have to take advantage of that.”

“That makes sense,” Alice said slowly. “I just feel that someone’s playing a great joke on us all. I mean, Ronald and I both saw that footprint and I swear it was far too large to be human. If that isn’t the work of a prankster, then what could it be?”

“Alice.” A masculine voice behind her called her name. “Hello. Are you walking back to the inn?” It was Maxwell, coming toward her with a computer case slung over one shoulder.

“Yes. I just returned some books,” Alice told him.

“Did you find your cat? Ethel told me you went to the humane society to pick him up this morning.”

Alice shook her head sadly, touched that he remembered to ask. “No. It wasn’t ours.” She almost smiled. “In fact, it was a mother with two kittens, although she did have coloring similar to Wendell’s.”

Maxwell’s eyes widened. “Even I wouldn’t have made that mistake,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“That’s terrible,” Nia said. “How could the humane society confuse things like that?” She indicated the bulletin board behind the desk, where Alice had dropped off another one of Jane’s flyers. “This clearly says it is a male.”

“It wasn’t the humane society’s fault. We received a call from a man who wanted the reward. Either it was an honest mistake or he was hoping I’d give him the money before I saw the cat. Either way, the end result is the same. It wasn’t Wendell.”

“Oh, how disappointing.” Nia looked sympathetic. “But you keep thinking positively, Alice. Don’t give up yet.”

Alice nodded and said a polite good-bye, thinking that if one more person told her not to give up, she was going to bean them with the nearest object. Then she immediately felt mean-spirited. Here she was, attempting to be a Christian role model for Maxwell, and her own thoughts were far from Christian.

Lord
, she thought,
mold me, shape me, help me embody Your commandments and example
.

Maxwell, walking at her side, said, “You’re very quiet, Alice. I’m sure that false alarm must have been a terrible blow.”

“It was,” Alice said quietly. “It was.” Then, making a conscious effort to shake off her morose mood, she said, “Louise told me she gave you a Bible and study aid. If you want to discuss anything, I’d be happy to do so.”