Upstate Uproar (18 page)

Vivian sniffed a couple of times. “All I
smell is delicious maple syrup. This fruit’s not cutting it.”

Wendy pushed her plate away, alarmed. “It’s
smoke. Something’s on fire!”

V
ivian got up from
the dining room table and looked outside. “No need to freak out,
the fire’s outside.” She sat back down and polished off her milk.
“I wish I could do that at my house. Instead I fill up a hundred
bags. Seriously.”

Eighty yards from the house, a big pile of
leaves was smoking and flames licked up one side. Brandon walked
out from behind the pile squirting lighter fluid on the leaves.

“Geez,” Kate said, standing next to the
window. “For a second, I was afraid the house was on fire. Old
wiring, you know?”

Tracy bustled through the kitchen door again
and picked up the breakfast dishes. “I’ll be heading into town for
a while this morning. Can I get you anything before I go? Brandon
will be busy burning leaves and branches around the property.”

The girls looked at each other, and no one
said anything. Finally, Wendy answered, “We’re good, thanks.”

Tracy struggled to pick up their three plates
plus the waffle platter and coffee cups, so Vivian pitched in and
helped her to the kitchen with the dishes.

“Y’all usually burn leaves here?” she asked.
“We just have to rake them into bags and they get picked up.”

Tracy set the dishes on the counter. “They
pile up this time of year, and if we don’t keep up with them,
they’d just about bury the house. No leaf-pick-up service around
here. We just have to burn them. Safely, of course.”

“That smell makes me crave s’mores.”

“What are you girls going to do today?”

“Larson is taking us out on the lake later
this afternoon in his boat. We’re going on a walk around here for
now, get some exercise.”

“The smoke from the leaves can be pretty
thick with all the piles we’ve got, but I have a couple of ATVs you
can ride.”

“Kate probably shouldn’t ride those, being
pregnant and all. We’ll figure out something. Thanks, though.”
Vivian left the kitchen and joined Kate and Wendy upstairs.

Kate lay on the bed and Wendy had her laptop
open, clicking away. Vivian walked to the closet and opened the
door. “I know just the place to start the house search.” She knelt
down and tugged on the crawl space door. “I didn’t see this until
yesterday after Lucy took her suitcase.” It didn’t open easily, and
Vivian fell back on her butt when it finally gave.

“What are you doing?” Kate walked up behind
her and peered into the closet. “Oh.”

Vivian looked through the door at a couple of
boxes, some cobwebs and darkness. “I’m not crawling in there.” She
took a sniff. “Musty and full of spiders. No way.”

“Me, neither.” Kate smiled and rubbed her
belly.

Wendy moved around Kate and stood behind
Vivian. “Good find, Viv! Nobody has to go in there, I can reach the
boxes. Let’s snoop.”

Wendy reached for the top of the two boxes
and pulled it toward her. It moved easily but kicked up dust,
making her sneeze. She got it through the door and set it on the
empty luggage rack next to the closet. Then she grabbed the
other.

Kate locked the door to both rooms. “I know
Tracy’s gone and Brandon’s burning leaves, but just in case!”

Vivian coughed as she opened the flaps to the
top box, then brushed off her hands before reaching in and picking
up an old framed picture of a little girl riding a tricycle.
Several more pictures of the same girl progressively aging were in
the box, along with a porcelain-faced, blonde-haired baby doll.
“I’m not picking her up.”

“This old thing?” Kate asked, grabbing the
doll. The eyes rolled back in the head, and Vivian yanked the doll
out of Kate’s hands and tossed it back into the box.

“Don’t touch her. She’s evil looking. You
don’t want to bring bad things to you and Little Plum!”

Kate laughed and reached for the doll
again.

Vivian slapped at her hand. “I’m serious.
She’s creepy. Leave her alone.”

Wendy picked up a picture of a girl skiing on
a lake and took the cover off the back. “Says ‘Mary Beth, age 14.’
Looks like she knew what she was doing.”

Kate reached in the box for a white, satin
photo album trimmed in lace. A big puffy heart on the front read
“Our Wedding Day.” She opened the album and looked at several of
the pictures, then turned it to show Vivian and Wendy. “Look at
this.”

Brandon and Mary Beth stood frozen in time,
hand in hand, wearing tux and gown at a church altar. Her face was
draped in a veil, and she carried a colorful bouquet of flowers. A
brass candelabra with 12-inch tapers glowed behind them.

“Brandon looks so young,” Wendy said. “Almost
like a teenager.”

“They both do,” Kate said.

The girls flipped through the entire
album.

“How long ago do you think this was?” Vivian
asked.

Kate turned to the back where an invitation
had been carefully laminated, surrounded by dried flowers.
“Fourteen years ago.”

“Wow, three wives and he’s not even 40!”
Vivian closed the album, and a plume of dust shot into her
face.

Wendy coughed. “Yeah, and two of them are
dead.”

Kate set the invitation in the box, then
closed up the remnants of Mary Beth’s life. “I think it’s sweet
that he kept these, but I guess it’s hard to just throw away your
past loves and your wedding photos.”

Wendy put the box back into the crawl space.
“Yeah, but why here and not in a desk or cabinet or somewhere more
normal?”

“And cobweb free,” Vivian added, then sighed.
“My guess is the second wife nixed it.” She reached for the smaller
box. “Let’s see what we’ve got inside box number two.” She easily
peeled back the aged packing tape and opened the flaps.

Just as she reached her hand inside, a loud
knock sounded on the bedroom door. She snatched her hand away, as
if she’d been burned. “Oh, shit!”

Brandon’s voice sounded outside the door.
“Anyone home? I came to get the trash.”

Vivian jumped up, grabbed the box from the
luggage rack and threw it in the closet. Wendy started toward the
door, just as a key went in the knob.

“We’re in here, hold on a sec,” Vivian said
as she pulled a shirt off a hanger and tossed it over the box, then
closed the closet door.

Wendy stood aside as Brandon walked in with a
black trash bag. “I figured you girls would be out causing trouble
somewhere.”

Kate sat on the bed. “I needed a break after
all that breakfast, but I think we’re about to go on a walk around
the lake.”

“It’s a beautiful day for it,” Brandon called
from the bathroom. “It’s a little warmer than yesterday.” He
emerged with the trash bag. A black smear of soot was on his cheek.
“Be sure to take some water. I’ll be tending to the leaf piles if
you need me.”

“Thanks,” Wendy said and followed him to the
door, closing it behind him, then leaned against it and let out a
sigh of relief.

“We almost got busted!” Vivian whispered.
“Let’s hurry so we can re-hide the evidence!”

Wendy tossed aside the shirt, grabbed the box
from the closet, set it on the bed and opened it up. She reached
inside. “Oooh, la la, what do we have here.” She slowly revealed a
black lace nightie with red trim.

“I’m guessing that’s not Tracy’s,” Vivian
said.

Kate reached inside and found a framed
picture of a middle-aged woman, very pretty, trim with brown hair
and riding on a horse. Another picture showed the same woman with
Brandon standing behind one of those replica ship wheels that serve
as great moneymakers for cruise photographers. It read “Majesty of
the Open Seas.”

“Definitely not Tracy,” Kate said, putting
aside the picture. She then picked up a black lace 4x6 photo album
with red trim. “Look, it matches the nightie.” She looked up at
Vivian and Wendy with a mischievous smile. “Do we dare look
inside?”

“You look,” Wendy said. “If it’s what I think
it is, I don’t want to see it.”

Kate laughed and opened the album. It was
Brandon and the woman standing on a white sand beach, turquoise
water behind them. He wore a Hawaiian shirt, tan shorts and
flip-flops, and she wore a strapless, peach dress and held a small
bouquet of tropical flowers.

“This must be wife number two,” Vivian said,
staring at the woman’s mouth, especially her lower jaw. Vivian felt
the need to wash her hands again, but fought the urge. “She was
pretty. Why would someone want to hurt her?”

“Maybe she turned out to be psycho, or was
worth more dead than alive,” Wendy offered.

The rest of the album was more of the
wedding, Brandon and Rebecca feeding each other cake, clinking
champagne glasses. One picture was of their hands, bouquet in the
background.

“That diamond is huge,” Vivian said, thinking
back to the simple gold band from when she and Rick were
married.

“This album didn’t turn out the way I thought
it would,” Wendy said, “and I’m glad.”

Kate flipped to the last page. “Hold your
horses there.” She showed them what she’d found. Rebecca was posing
seductively in a black lace negligee. A white envelope lay opposite
the last page so Kate opened it and pulled out more pictures.
“Whoa! Naughty naughty!”

Vivian laughed. “I can see why he’s hiding
these pictures from Tracy!”

Rebecca’s negligee had been tossed aside and
Brandon had gotten full-body close-ups. Kate quickly shuffled
through the rest, which became more and more intimate. Vivian
wondered how they were able to get a picture of some of their more
intricate poses.

Kate stuffed the pictures back into the
envelope. “He’s not a bad looking guy, but I’ve seen enough.”

“More than enough,” Wendy said and rubbed her
eyes.

“I thought you weren’t going to look,” Kate
said.

“I had to look after you were so excited
about what you’d found. Then it was like a train wreck, and I
couldn’t look away. I’m going to have a difficult time looking at
Brandon without thinking about, you know,
it
.”

Vivian dug in the box and pulled out a folder
that said “Northwestern Mutual” on it. She opened it and scanned
the first page. “What do we have here?”

Kate looked over her shoulder. “Looks like
$500,000 in a life insurance policy on Rebecca Holt.”

“Who’s the beneficiary?” Wendy asked.

“Who do you think? Brandon.” Vivian flipped
through more of the pages.

Kate tapped her finger to her lips. “Hmm,
that’s a decent amount of money, but it’s not like Brandon could
live forever off of that.”

Vivian pulled out the next document and
scanned it before handing it to Wendy. “You’re the mortgage person,
don’t you look at this kind of stuff all the time on your clients’
files? Am I reading this correctly with a balance of $2.9
million?”

Wendy took the investment statement from
Vivian and looked it over. “Now this is something. Rebecca’s full
balance was $2,974,329.07. Getting close to an even three. A little
more interest and she’d have been there.”

Kate gave a low whistle. “Looks like
Christine from the shop was right about her being rich. But where
did she get that money?”

Wendy took the folder from Vivian and looked
through more of the papers. She handed one to Vivian. “Read this.
It looks like a will for a Roger White. I just ran across his death
certificate, and it listed his spouse as Rebecca White.”

“What did he die from?” Kate asked.

“Myocardial infarction.”

“Heart attack,” Vivian said. She’d had a will
done after her divorce from Rick, but this was much more complex.
She might not have a law degree, but she could figure it out.
“Rebecca stood to inherit 100 percent of his estate, money, house,
investments, but only if they didn’t have any children. Do we know
if they had any kids?”

“We didn’t see any children in any of the
pictures in her box,” Kate said. “Did you find a will for her?”

“Ah,” Wendy said and pulled another document
from the folder. She sat on the bed while she flipped through it.
“Doesn’t look like she had any kids, and you know who her sole
beneficiary was?”

“Lemme guess,” Vivian said, but before she
could answer…

Knock, knock, knock.

T
he girls were frozen
for a second before Vivian snapped to and whispered, “Quick, let’s
get all of this back in the closet. Kate, look like you’re
resting.”

“Just a minute,” Kate called toward the door.
“Who is it?”

“Me again,” Brandon said.

Wendy and Vivian scrambled to get the papers
into the box, and the box into in the closet. Vivian smoothed her
shirt and fluffed her hair before opening the door. “Hi.”

Brandon walked in. “I just came to get the
towels. What happened to your walk?”

Vivian’s phone rang, and she was glad for the
distraction. She grabbed it off the nightstand and checked the
display. Nicole.

Kate was lying down. She put her hands behind
her head. “I just wasn’t feeling up to it. The girls were nice
enough to hang with me while I rested. I’m fine, nothing a little
more bacon can’t fix.”

Brandon smiled and slowly looked around the
room. He smelled of smoke. “Okay, glad all is well.” He disappeared
into the bathroom and soon emerged with the dirty towels.

“All is well, we’re just chilling.” Vivian
sat on the bed next to Kate.

Brandon walked toward the door, then turned
around. “There are makings for BLTs in the kitchen. Let me know if
you’d like one.”

“Thanks,” the girls called as he slowly
closed the door.

“Oh my god,” Vivian whispered, hopping up and
locking the door. “That was too close. Is he really working or just
being nosy?”