Veil of Silence (36 page)

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“Hello, I’m lookin’ for a realtor?” Amy asked the next morning as she presented herself at one of the local offices from the newspaper she had read the evening before.  She felt much better after a good night’s sleep and an excellent breakfast made by Mrs. Katzenburger.  She had met Mr. Katzenburger and a few of her other guests and chatted amiably with them.  She implied she was on vacation but found out a lot more about them than they did about her despite their well-meaning questions and inquiries.  She eagerly went out into the early fall weather with the sun shining brightly and realized she would have to get some fall clothes as it was a lot colder this far north than she was used to.  The lovely fall leaves were changing on the trees around the town.  It was rather picturesque.

“Well you’ve found one!” the older woman told Amy with a smile.

Amy returned the smile as she looked around the well-lit office.  Almost all of the small office was taken up by windows that allowed a two sided view of the marina and the lake.  It was light, airy, and perfect to show off the many pictures hanging on the walls over the windows and around them of properties for sale or already sold by this office.  “I’m lookin’ for a year round rental, possibly lease to own,” she told the woman.

Lenora smiled at the possibility of a sale over just a rental and introduced herself quickly and efficiently.  “What exactly do you want in a home, a stand-alone, a condo, a fixer upper?  Will your husband be joining you, do you have children?” she asked.

Only a brief shadow crossed Amy’s eyes but you would have had to know her very well to have seen it.  “No, this is just for myself so one or two bedrooms would be fine.  I don’t know about a fixer upper but what do you have?  Oh, I should tell you I’m thinkin’ of lookin’ into any businesses that may be for sale here in town as I’m thinkin’ of stayin’.”

Lenora thought she had died and gone to heaven but she was also cautious.  Many tourists ‘thought’ they would like to stay in one of the many little towns located in this area of the state but they never stayed, it was all grandiose dreams and ‘what ifs’ and never came to anything.  A huge waste of her efforts and time.  She began to show the potential client the rentals she had on file but she also surreptitiously noted the woman was well dressed in slacks and a nice blouse with an expensive faux leather jacket that completed the outfit becomingly.  Her red hair was a little much and Lenora briefly thought it must be dyed to look that exact color especially with the dark eyebrows and lashes.  She did however speak slowly and precisely in her southern drawl which bespoke nice manners and a certain flair.  It impressed Lenora who began to discuss the businesses located in the town, both for the tourist trade and for the locals.  Most shopped in the larger towns for groceries or even trekked down to Green Bay for the major things.  Their town was a jumping off point to the islands that were out on the lake.  The ferry, and the fishing trips that were a major income for their little town.

Amy was intrigued.  It had started as a small fishing village and grown to accommodate the tourists and still retained its homey charm.  It wasn’t large and yet enough people came through here to make it worth the locals while to maintain the tourist interests.

Lenora showed her a couple of houses, driving her in and around the town as she shared news and Amy found one she liked.  An old hunting cabin that needed some work but was private, discrete, and had no near neighbors.  The price was amazingly low even for a rental but she knew it was more because of its location than anything else.  She carefully noted as Lenora showed her around how far it was from the town and determined it was a nice walk although with winter not that far off she would have to obtain a vehicle of some sort.  She signed the papers to rent with the contingency to make an offer at any time up to a year from the date of the rental.  She made sure to read the papers closely first.  Then Lenora began to show her some of the empty buildings in town as well as established businesses giving her a little gossip at the same time.

“This one has been owned by the same family for nearly a hundred years, and I know the current owner has no interest in maintaining it anymore,” Lenora confessed as they went into a little market store with a few fishing reels on the one wall and a little bit of everything.  A house was attached to the store with a police cruiser in the drive.   Amy could already see the store was under-utilized and had shrunk from its former glory days, very little of the actual space was used.  She could see potential though.  It had a wraparound porch that went around the entire building except for the one side against the neighboring house and one side was out over the marina where a gas pump stood on a dock.

“Hi Lenora, how’s tricks?” a little girl of about six or seven asked from behind the counter.  Amy blinked in surprise and tried not to laugh.

“Heather, that’s not polite,” Lenora hissed reproachfully.  “You are to call me Mrs. Watson and not by my first name without permission.”

“You call me by
my
first name,” the girl returned sulkily.  It was obvious her mode of address had been a repeat of something an adult had said at one point.

“Where is your …” Lenora hesitated before continuing, “Mother?” she asked cautiously.

“She’s around here somewhere,” the little girl replied saucily, she wasn’t kept down very long by Lenora’s tone and looked around the place as though to make her mother appear magically.

“Why aren’t you in school today?” Lenora fired at the little girl.

Amy watched amused as the little girl handled the prickly realtor effortlessly.  “Parent teacher conferences,” she said distractedly as she called out, “MOM!” and the two adults cringed at the ear-splitting yell that came from the small girl.

“Yeah?” a voice answered from a back room and soon they all saw a brunette swagger into view, it was obvious she had been working on something as she was disheveled and looked like she had just gotten up.  Amy was amused as she recognized one of the patrons from the bar of last night and wondered if she had been drinking today.

“Abby, I have someone here interested in your business,” Lenora began in her best salesmanship voice.  She didn’t see the startled look on either of the other women’s faces.  Amy because she wasn’t ready to just jump into it like that and Abby because she hadn’t expected to be approached like this.

“Who say’s I’m ready to sell it?” Abby asked and the tone was similar to her daughter’s sulky one.

“C’mon Abby, you know it’s gone downhill since your grandparents passed on and you don’t have the time for it anymore,” Lenora responded not in the least intimidated by her tone.

“Maybe, but who says I wanna sell it?” Abby asked.

“Abigail Shipman, you know you yourself said it not so long ago.  Now I have this nice lady who is looking at possible investments here in town, so are you interested or not in the possibility of someone taking it over?” Lenora asked hotly, sick of being toyed with, first by her impertinent daughter and now the mother.

Abby grinned unrepentedly as she shared an amused glance with Amy.  “Maybe I am, maybe I ain’t,” she returned.

Lenora exhaled loudly through her nose at this news and crossed her arms in annoyance.  “Well, we won’t waste your time then,” she said as she gestured to Amy that they should leave.

Amy found herself being ushered out and glanced back amused into the brunette’s laughing brown eyes and nodded her goodbyes as Lenora puffed up like a wet chicken.  The rest of their morning she showed her empty buildings and while there were possibilities most of the ‘plans’ she had were vague re-creations of what already existed in the town.  Amy thanked her for her time, picked up the keys to her rental, and returned to the inn.

Sitting down she made a list of things she was going to need at her new house and knew she only had about forty-eight hours to accomplish them.  She only had the room for another night and couldn’t stay longer because of the tourists.  With that in mind she caught the bus before it left town that afternoon using up her ticket that had been paid until Green Bay to head there.  She got to see the inland side of The Thumb.  Faintly across the water she could see land but not the towns until they got to Green Bay.  She got directions and took a cab to the car centers.  She knew what she would need in an area that got a lot of snow and what would be necessary to survive up here.  The salesmen were like any and her southern accent charmed them all.  She knew as a woman alone shopping for a car that she was at a disadvantage but she continued on until she came across a SUV she liked.  It got good gas mileage, had four-wheel drive, and was only ‘slightly’ used with low mileage so that she got a discount off the newer models.  She didn’t believe the story that an older couple had traded in the vehicle as it was ‘too much’ for them but she did like the four door vehicle with plenty of cargo area in the back.  She signed on all the necessary lines and took out a ‘small’ loan to establish herself in this area, fortunately it was still early enough in the day that her bank account in the south ‘checked out’ and they knew she was good for it.  Driving off the lot she felt powerful as she headed for the nearest home stores.

She bought paint for the cabin, an inflatable mattress, and a hunters sleeping bag until the sheets and pillows and cases she also bought could be used.  She went to a restaurant and ate as she continued her lists and then hit the stores once again.  She was really pleased with the selection and for the first time heard about a place called Appleton and the Fox River Mall that had ‘outlet’ stores.  Hearing it was an additional hour south she decided to concentrate on where she was at for now.  In short order she arranged for a bed and mattresses for her ‘humble’ home as well as a living room set and a television.  She got some of the basics and with all this piled in the back of her new SUV she headed back up the coast hoping she wouldn’t get lost.  It was a fairly straight forward ride but confusing to her in the dark as she was unfamiliar with the area.  Strangely once she got across the bridge in Sturgeon Bay she had a feeling that she was heading ‘home.’  She was relieved once she hit Northpoint and found the Duck and Swan.  Parking on the street she went inside for a well-deserved rest after her full day, she was grateful that her hosts had obviously been in to clean the room and lay down new wood that took only a moment to light.  She went to sleep with the screen in front of the fireplace dreamily watching the flames and wondering about her future here in Northpoint.

The next morning, she checked out of the Duck and Swan and thanked Mrs. Katzenburger for her hospitality.  She mentioned she had rented a place outside of town and relieved her host’s curiosity as she mentioned the location.

“Oh that place, it’s been empty for years.  You are going to want to have the heating and vents checked, it gets pretty cold up here,” she supplied concernedly.  “I can recommend a handyman if you want,” she offered.

Amy took her up on her offer, the best people came by recommendation and she knew if her new ‘friends’ recommended them they would probably recommend the best.

“Oh, you bought a truck?” was the next question-like comment.

Mr. Katzenburger chimed in on that, “I’m not so sure about them foreign jobs, I personally stick to the adage, buy American.”

Amy listened respectfully but as it was the first vehicle she had ever purchased herself she was going to stick with it, she was proud of it and that she could afford it.  While her hosts had their own opinions she wasn’t going to let them upset her with their comments.  As she put the heavy bag containing all her clothes in the back seat she was pleased she still had so much room in the SUV.  It all belonged to her though, it was all ‘hers’ and her’s alone.  She pulled up in front of her cabin and looked around at the tall trees, the deep layer of years of accumulation below them and breathed in the silence.  This was hers.  Rented perhaps, but hers.  She smiled and began to unload her SUV.

She swept out the small cabin first, noting the thick logs and wondering if it would be warm enough to get her through the winter.  She had no idea if it would and the wood next to the cabin in a neatly stacked pile didn’t look like nearly enough.  She didn’t see any other way to heat the small cabin and she thoughtfully swept every nook and cranny from the ceiling to the floor as she eliminated dust and debris from years of having no one in the cabin.  She raised a bit of dust herself by her efforts and opened all the windows noting how ‘cool’ it was as she worked.  Finally though she felt it was clean enough to haul out the soaps and conditioners she had bought for her wood floors and walls.  She started in the kitchen and began scrubbing the walls first and then floors, astonished at the amount of dirty water she soon had in the bucket she used.  Throwing it outside beyond the porch, she stretched her back realizing a lot of time had gone by.  She would have to leave some of the house for another day if she wanted it to warm up.

She closed the windows and started a fire in the fireplace only to have the smoke start to choke her out.  She tried the flu but that didn’t seem to work well and she wondered if the chimney had something in it.  She shrugged; it was too late in the day for her to do anything about it really so she brought her sleeping bag and blew up her mattress.  She realized she needed to get the electricity turned on in the cabin and a phone.  She made numerous lists as she realized how unprepared she really was.  Washing up with cold water she checked and found an electric water heater in a closet in the kitchen so she knew she would eventually have hot water.  Having no idea how to turn on the electricity, she shivered in the cold water and rolled down her sleeves and put on a sweater to hide her dirty shirt and headed back into town.  She tried another restaurant.  This one was a little finer than Chuckies and she felt a little self-conscious in her jeans until she saw other patrons wearing the same.