“You two stayin’ long?” the man at the desk asked. “Here on business? Plannin’ to see the sights? Plannin’ on lookin’ at land for sale? I gotta cousin that sells real estate and he’s got two farms for sale right now. Fairmont’s a great place to raise kids. We got a bus that takes the kids to school. Only takes ’em an hour to get there. Fine school too.”
“Thanks,” Jeff said as he took the key from the man but didn’t answer any of his questions.
In the room, Jeff put his bag on the end of one bed and looked around. There was dark, cheap paneling on the walls and three pictures of scenery. Both of the beds sagged in the middle and the spreads were faded and thin from being washed hundreds of times.
“I can’t imagine why Hinton wanted to get out of this place,” Jeff said sarcastically.
“The story has certainly become distorted over the years,” Cassie said, looking at him. “Why do you think Hinton is so reviled here? They even have the dates wrong. The trial wasn’t in the 1920s but the 1940s.” She sat down on the end of the bed and looked at the stained carpet.
Jeff sat down beside her. “Are you sure you want to look into this?” he asked quietly. “All this is connected to Althea, and you say that you don’t want to hear about the things that she’s been involved with in her life, but I can tell you that she’s a woman who loves excitement. She’s run from bullets and hidden from known killers. Her movies have taken her all over the world and she put herself in danger everywhere she went. I’m afraid you’ll hear things about her that you won’t like.”
“Did all the excitement in her life accomplish anything?”
“During World War Two, she brought back knowledge from Germany that some of our people think won the war for us.”
“Then it was all worth it, wasn’t it? No matter what trivia we find out here, Althea’s life has been important.” He was sitting close to her and she could feel the warmth of him.
“Cassie,” Jeff said softly, “I want to apologize for all the things I did to you when you lived with me.”
“You never did anything,” she said, then gave a bit of a grin. “That was the problem.”
“Yeah?” he said with a serious look. “If that was the problem, I could remedy that now.” He moved as though he was going to kiss her again, but Cassie stood up.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Do you think this town has a restaurant?”
“If they do, I’m sure it’s either barbecue or Tex-Mex.”
“Darn! And I was so in the mood for sushi.”
Jeff laughed. “You want the bathroom first?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said as she grabbed her bag.
The Tex-Mex restaurant was in the middle of downtown Fairmont. There were five stores, two of them empty, and the bank was across the street from the restaurant. They checked the opening hours painted on the door and planned to be there at nine the next morning. When they entered the restaurant, everyone stopped talking and looked at them, and Cassie felt certain that all of them knew they’d landed in a plane and had been asking questions about the town’s history. She stayed close behind Jeff as he went to a table, nodding at the other customers as he walked. The waitress gave them stained menus, and soon they had heaping plates full of enchiladas, tacos, and chalupas in front of them.
Just as they finished eating, a tall, gangly kid with an enormous cowboy hat straddled one of the chrome and aluminum chairs at their table. “I hear you two are lookin’ for information about this town.”
“Yes, we are,” Jeff said. “You know anything?”
“Naw, but my granny does. She used to know the murderer.”
“Hinton Landau?” Cassie asked.
“I don’t know what his name was, but I heard he killed a lot of people. I think they should have left the town named after him. Maybe with some publicity we could get some tourists in this place. You two wanta buy a truck?”
“No, thank you,” Jeff said. “We’re just passing through. You think we could talk to your grandmother tomorrow?”
“Sure,” the boy said. “Anytime. She don’t do nothin’ all day.”
“We’d like to take her a gift,” Cassie said. “What would she like?”
“A new game for her PlayStation.”
“She would like that or you would?” Cassie asked.
“Both of us,” the boy said as he got up from the table.
“How do we find you?” Jeff asked as the boy walked away.
“Ask anybody for Eric,” he said over his shoulder as he left the little restaurant.
“Why do I feel like we’ve just been set up for something?” Cassie asked quietly. There were people at two of the other five tables and they were listening to every word that she and Jeff said.
“Me too,” Jeff answered. “Are you finished?”
“Yeah,” she said, watching him. He didn’t seem to want her to say anything else that could be overheard.
He paid the bill, and they headed outside. It was growing dark and their motel was within walking distance.
“Do you think all these stories are wrong out of ignorance or because we’re being lied to?” Cassie asked.
“I don’t know, but I suspect lies. But then, that’s my business.” Reaching out, he took her hand and pulled her into a dark passage between a couple of buildings.
“Jeff! I don’t think this is the time to—Oh,” she said as he pulled his BlackBerry out of his pocket.
“I got the kid’s license number off his truck and I want to send it to Dad to check out,” he said as he quickly typed in the numbers and a brief message. When he finished, he smiled at her. “Let’s go back to our palace. It’s been a long day for both of us.”
Cassie agreed. They’d had beer with their food and all the events of the day were at last hitting her. All she wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for about twelve hours.
As soon as they got back to the motel, Jeff climbed onto one of the beds and began punching at the keyboard on his little machine.
“I’m going to take a shower now,” she said, and when Jeff didn’t respond, she said, “And I’m going to put on my nightgown.” No response. “The one Althea sent. It’s transparent.”
“Mmmm,” was all Jeff said, his eyes and fingers on the machine.
With a sigh, Cassie went into the bathroom. When she emerged thirty minutes later, Jeff didn’t seem to have moved. She was tempted to ask him what he was doing, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She climbed into the other bed and was asleep instantly.
When she awoke the next morning, she turned over to see Jeff still sitting on the bed, fully dressed, and still typing on his little keyboard. If he weren’t wearing clean clothes and had wet hair, she would have thought he’d been at it all night.
“Find out anything?” she asked, her voice husky from sleep.
“You don’t snore,” he said, not looking up. “Which I am very glad to know.”
“Me too, and my boyfriend will be glad to hear it.”
“If he doesn’t already know it, he isn’t much of a boyfriend, is he?”
Cassie laughed. “Would you please tell me what you’re doing?”
“Just getting some information,” he said as he turned off the BlackBerry and tossed it on the bed. “It’s already eight, so you have one hour to get ready for the bank. We can eat breakfast at the same place we had dinner.”
“Then what?” Cassie asked as she rummaged in her bag for clean clothes. When Jeff didn’t answer her, she looked up at him. His face was white.
“I thought you were kidding about transparent.”
“I never kid about transparent,” she said as she turned her back on him and went to the bathroom. She smiled while she dressed.
“My goodness,” said the lady at the bank, “this is an old one.”
“Is there any problem with it?” Jeff asked.
“None. The rent’s been paid on it since”—she looked at the paper—“1926.” She looked back up at Jeff
. “The bank opened in 1925.”
Neither Jeff nor Cassie said anything in answer to her silent questions.
“I don’t see any problem with this if you have the key, but I think I should check with the manager. Would you wait here for me?”
“Of course,” Jeff said.
The woman went into an office that had a glass window and they watched as she talked to an older man who kept glancing at Jeff and Cassie.
“He’s looking at us as though we’d given them a note saying ‘Hand over all your money.’”
“Small towns are suspicious,” Jeff said. “A safe-deposit box untouched for over eighty years. Did you see who the box was registered under?”
“No,” she said, turning her back on the manager’s inquiring looks. “I tried, but she kept the name hidden.”
“If I know Althea, she had the box put under her name. She likes to see her name on things.”
“If I were as good an actress as she is, I would too,” Cassie snapped. “I don’t see why you have to belittle her at every opportunity. She’s done some—”
“Everything’s fine,” the teller said, smiling at them. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you to the boxes.”
As they followed in silence, Cassie made a gesture of around her neck, then her wrists. At breakfast she’d told Jeff that she hoped the box was stuffed with jewels. “Maybe the ones that were stolen from Althea are in the box.”
“I told you that no jewels were ever stolen from Althea,” Jeff said. “Any jewels that were given to her, she had copied in zircons, then she sold the real ones. The woman has millions.”
“As far as I can tell, Althea never tells anyone the whole truth, so we don’t know what’s in the box. I’m hoping for jewels.”
So now she was letting him know that she was hoping that the box was full of jewels.
The teller used her key, and Cassie used the one she’d found under the floorboard to open the safe-deposit door. The teller pulled the long, narrow, metal box out and set it on the table. She seemed reluctant to leave the room, but Cassie and Jeff didn’t move until she was gone.
Slowly, they opened the box. The only thing inside it was a folded piece of paper. Before withdrawing it, Jeff looked about the room, and when he saw the overhead security camera, he blocked its view with his body. He withdrew the paper, put it inside his shirt, closed the box, and put it back.
He and Cassie left the room. In the main room of the bank, she waited by the door as Jeff told the teller that the box would no longer be needed. Whatever was left in the account was to be sent to Althea Fairmont. Later, Jeff told Cassie that the way the teller nodded at the name made him sure that it was Althea’s name on the account.
Jeff went to Cassie and they left the bank. “Come on,” he said, nodding toward a huge oak tree about fifty yards away.
They sat down on the grass under the tree and Jeff slowly pulled the paper out from inside his shirt and unfolded it.
It was a marriage license, dated 1926, for Lester Myers and Florence Turner.
“Florence Myers,” Cassie said.
“Look at the birth dates. He was eighteen and she was…” He looked at Cassie. “She was just fourteen years old when they got married.”
“I’d put money on it that they got married because they had to,” Cassie said. “Fourteen and pregnant, no doubt.”
“And I’ll bet that Lester Myers became Hinton Landau,” Jeff said.
“Do you think he ever divorced Florence?”
“If he did, then he’d have to admit he married her in the first place.”
Cassie leaned back against the tree. “Okay, so let’s put this story together. Lester Myers—”
“Who was living in Hinton, Texas,” Jeff said.
“Right. Lester Myers knocked up the very young Florence Turner and they had to get married.”
“I don’t know the dates, but I would imagine that right after the marriage young Lester—”
“Who, as we know, was very handsome, fled Texas and went to Hollywood,” Cassie said.
“Where he became a movie star,” Jeff said. “And in Hollywood, he married Ruth.”
“Ah,” Cassie said. “Wasn’t Ruth from Texas too? I wonder if she was from Hinton?”
Jeff nodded. “That would make sense. Ruth sees that Lester—who by that time had renamed himself Hinton—is now in films, so she goes to Hollywood and what? Threatens to tell the world that he had impregnated and married a fourteen-year-old?”
“That knowledge ruined Jerry Lee Lewis’s career in the 1950s. I can’t imagine the scandal in the 1920s. My guess is that Ruth blackmailed Hinton into pretending to be married to her.”
“Not a very nice thought,” Cassie said. “But it makes sense. But wasn’t she worried that Lester-Hinton’s real wife would find out? And what about the baby Florence was about to have? What happened to it?”
“Good questions. I suggest you take the car and go to the nearest library and see what you can find out,” Jeff said. “You can look up the records of births and deaths.”
Cassie narrowed her eyes at him. “I guess you mean that I’m to go spend the day in a library while you do what?”
Jeff didn’t answer immediately but seemed to search for an answer.
“You’re going to that boy’s grandmother, aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” Jeff said with a smile.
“What did you find out on that machine you spent most of the night typing on?” Her eyes widened. “What is that boy’s name? Jeff! You’d better tell me.”
“Or what?”
“I’ll go back to Fort Lauderdale and stay there.”
“You’re cruel, you know that? Okay. The kid we met in the restaurant is named Eric Turner.”
“Florence’s maiden name. And how do you know that?”
“After you went to sleep last night, I went to the front desk and shared a couple of beers with the desk clerk. That kid has been in trouble since he was twelve. Everything from shoplifting to ‘borrowing cars.’ Everyone in town says it’s just a matter of time before he commits a real crime and gets sent to jail.”
“I guess he’s a descendant of Florence’s child.”
“That’s my guess.”
Cassie was quiet for a moment. “That poor girl. Pregnant and married at fourteen. A shotgun wedding with no love, then her new husband runs off to Hollywood, changes his name, and denies that he’s married. Do you think Florence read about his so-called marriage to Ruth in a movie magazine?”
“Probably. What I wonder is if she knew Ruth. You wouldn’t know Ruth’s maiden name, would you?”
“No, but I bet Althea does,” Cassie said, smiling.
Jeff had his phone out of his pocket before she finished the sentence. He called, asked Althea just the one question, then hung up.
“I think I can guess,” Cassie said. “Her name was Ruth Turner.”
“Right on, baby,” Jeff said, then kissed her cheek as she stood up.
“You think Ruth was Florence’s sister?”
“Yes, I do,” Jeff said. “And what’s more, I think Ruth killed her sister when Florence showed up in Hollywood.”
Cassie got up. “Althea said that just before the murder, the studio had fired Hinton. Now I can see why. He impregnated a fourteen-year-old girl, married her, left her, then years later he was living with her sister and posing as being married.”
“That would be a scandal today, but in 1941…Wow! And don’t forget that he was in love with Althea,” Jeff said.
“I think Charles Faulkener found out about all of it and that’s why he brought poor ol’ Florence to his house that weekend.”
Jeff gave a low whistle. “A truly nasty man. No doubt he wanted to show Althea the true nature of the man she was in love with.”
“And to get her back for saying he couldn’t act.”
“But the only person who suffered was poor Florence,” Jeff said.
“What about Hinton? His life was ruined.
He was tried for the murder and acquitted, but that was the end of his life.” She looked at Jeff. “Althea said that she thought Hinton was protecting Ruth, and I think she was right.”
“Me too, but I’d like to find out a bit more. I have no reason why, but…” Jeff shrugged.
“You want to do it for Althea, don’t you? What do you know that I don’t?”
“Nothing,” Jeff said. “But Dad said he thought that Hinton was the real love of Althea’s life. When she lost him she lost a lot. I know she’s never told her daughter who her father is.”
“Old World chivalry,” Cassie said. “If she told her daughter that Hinton was her father—”
“Althea’s daughter would look him up and see that he stood trial for murder. Who wants to find out their father was a murderer?”
“Hinton wasn’t a murderer, just a bigamist,” Cassie said.
“This kid Eric’s grandmother lives in a little house about a mile and a half down this road. You wouldn’t mind walking, would you?”
“I’d love to,” she said.
“Good, then we’ll take the path down by the river. If that’s all right with you, that is.”
She looked into his eyes and saw that there was more that he wanted than just stretching his legs. It looked as though he had something to say to her. “Yes, it’s all right,” she said softly.
They strolled down a dirt road and soon came to the river, the reason the town had been established in the first place. They turned left and started down a well-worn path, Cassie in the front.
“A man named Edward Hinton settled this area first,” Jeff said.
“Did you find that out from your ‘sources’?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Jeff said slowly.
She turned to look at him. “Find out anything else?”
“Not much. At least not much about this town. I think it’s a one-scandal town. But I found out something about my life.”
“And what is that?” she asked.
“That I love you.”
Cassie kept walking and tried to calm her pounding heart. “I’ve heard that before. In fact, you’ve said it to me several times. The first time was when I baked that mocha cheesecake.”