In the Cradle Lies Page 5

  “Have internet, can work,” he said.

  Jillian couldn’t argue. That’s how she ran her business.

  “Still,” Jillian said, “Hidden Run is something to reconsider. For safety’s sake. You have a company to think about.” If it was a family business, there must be family of some sort.

  “People who are afraid to learn to ski always think skiing is reckless. It’s a sport like any other.” Tucker indulged her with a patronizing smile. “I assure you I know what I’m doing.”

  Jillian turned her eyes to Kris in appeal.

  But Kris gave Jillian a smile that said, Get lost now.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Maple Turn, Missouri, 1940

  They never raised their voices. The tidy home on the curved lane in Maple Turn, Missouri, was as civil as any story Matthew ever read in school illustrating proper social manners. But this year his teacher had begun asking the class, “What do you think this character might be feeling?” The answer was rarely found in words suggesting the volume of dialogue. Matthew could hear Miss Lampier’s voice in his head now as he listened to the murmurings of his parents in the room below his bedroom, certain they were unaware of the unpredictable ways sound carried through the old house.

  His mother never called him Mattie anymore. Once he started school, his father insisted on his proper name, Matthew.

  Matthew Judd Ryder.

  If only his middle name wasn’t Judd.

  The only person who still called him Mattie was his friend Jackson, and only when no one else was around.

  Matthew blew out his breath, wide awake. No one could make a person sleep just by saying it was time for bed. It wasn’t even really time for bed. His mother only said that because his father was home between sales trips, and giving Matthew an earlier bedtime than usual seemed easier than explaining—again—that he had outgrown his old bedtime and ought at least to be allowed to read quietly in his room while his parents caught up on their days apart. Mama could talk to his father all she wanted, but why did Matthew have to lie in the dark?

  The house was old and simple, a relic of the last century. Relic had been on a school vocabulary list only last month. Matthew liked the sound of it. Downstairs at the front of the house were a parlor and a room Judd used as an office. Matthew thought of him that way. Judd. Not Papa. Out of respect for his mother, though, he accommodated expectations when he spoke of his father and called him Papa to everyone else. At the rear of the house were a dining room and the kitchen. Upstairs were three bedrooms, none of them large, and a space that had been sacrificed to modernize with an indoor bathroom at some point before his family moved in. The family rarely traveled together on Judd’s sales trips to hospital central supply administrators anymore, which suited Matthew. If Judd wanted his wife with him on a trip during the school summer vacation, Matthew pleaded to be allowed to stay with Grandpa Ted and Grandma Bea.

  The age of the Ryder home meant any efforts to heat it efficiently were unsuccessful, a matter that plastered a scowl on Judd’s face every fall when he took delivery of the oil he hoped would see them through the winter if they were sparing with the radiators and generous with sweaters and quilts. Installation of the radiator system had left gaping holes that had never been properly sealed, one of the reasons sound carried as well as it did from the kitchen beneath Matthew’s bedroom. Three years ago, he was five when he discovered that the sounds he heard during the night were not in his dreams, and if he got out of bed and peered down through the hole, he could see as well as hear. His mother hadn’t moved the position of the small kitchen table for at least as long as Matthew had been present in the home, and his parents hadn’t changed their habit of lingering at that table with coffee cups in the evenings. It was the warmest room in the house during the winter. Irresistible yellow light climbed alongside the iron pipe into his bedroom.

  Matthew eased out of bed now, counted four steps, stepped across the board he knew would squeak under the braided rug, and raised one hand to judge the temperature of the radiating heat.

  Not too strong. It hardly ever was.

  He knew just how to squat next to the fixture, tilt his head, and get a good look.

  “I only want you to make something of yourself,” Mama said. “Be in a position to make a contribution to the community. Isn’t that what you want? You used to talk about your dreams. I didn’t think it was… this.”

  “I need capital, Alyce. You know that. I’m doing all of this for us.”

  “But the way you’re getting the capital, Judd.”

  “It’s how I’m going to get what we need. It’s the same way you got what you wanted. You didn’t complain then.”

  Mama’s breath drew sharp.

  What was he talking about? Mama never wanted anything but a home and a family, and she had that. Matthew’s head bumped his bookcase in a sharp jerk.

  He froze.

  The conversation below stopped.

  “Is the boy up?” Judd said.

  “Perhaps for the bathroom,” Mama said.

  “I’ll check on him.”

  Matthew jumped on tiptoes over the squeaky board and dove back into bed. His heart was still pounding when Judd opened the bedroom door, but his eyes were closed and he was tucked in.

  “Matthew?”

  Matthew waited a few seconds and didn’t open his eyes. “Mmm?”

  “You all right?”

  “Mmm.” He couldn’t say he thought he was getting a lump on his head.

  Matthew peeked out through one partially opened eye. In the glow of light coming up through the pipe, Judd picked up a couple of books that had fallen from the bookcase.

  “Matthew,” Judd said.

  Matthew stirred and rubbed his eyes. “Sir?”

  “You need to take better care of your things.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Judd replaced the books in the case. “Go back to sleep.”

  “Yes, sir.” Matthew rolled over.

  Judd closed the door behind him. Matthew counted the seconds as his father descended the stairs and returned to the kitchen. A chubbier child would not have been able to get out of bed and return to the radiator with the practiced stealth Matthew possessed.

  “He’s all right?” his mother asked.

  “A couple of books fell. He probably didn’t put them away properly.”

  “He’s usually so careful.”

  “What were we talking about?” Judd’s interest in Matthew had already dispersed.

  “I don’t want to quarrel, Judd.” She reached across the table.

  Judd took her hand. “I do want to make you proud. Surely you know that. A business of my own would set us on solid footing, and I would know that you would be taken care of if something happens to me.”

  “Nothing is going to happen to you.”

  “I hope not. I want us to live into our dotage together, Alyce. Nothing would give me greater joy.”

  “And we have Matthew to think of.”

  “Yes, I suppose you will want him to have an education.”

  Matthew’s stomach hardened.

  “Don’t you?” his mother said.

  “If that is what will make you happy, then that is what will make me happy,” Judd said. “But it costs money to send a young man to college. I didn’t get to go.”

  “Surely if you could start a business, by the time he is old enough, it would be flourishing. My father always said he could have managed to send Alan if he had wanted to go.”

  “He’s already eight. College is only ten years away.”

  “Maybe it would be safer to stay in sales after all.” Disappointment dripped from his mother’s words.

  “No,” Judd said. “Selling into the hospitals for the supply company has given me connections. The hospitals are crawling with nurses and social workers who would help—for the good of the children.”

  What children?

  Matthew held his breath as long as he could, hoping his mother’s silence would
not outlast his ability.

  “How long do you suppose it would take?” she finally said.

  “I’m not sure. It depends on what kind of business I settle on and how ambitious we want to be.”

  “Surely you will have a bank loan. Don’t all businesses do that?”

  “It would be suspicious not to. But I have to have some money down, and the house is already mortgaged.”

  “A second mortgage?”

  “We don’t have enough equity. And the debt ratio to the starting revenue, no matter the business, would be unbearable without sufficient starting capital.”

  They were using words Matthew didn’t understand, but he could look them up in the dictionary tomorrow. Equity. Capital. Ratio. Revenue.

  “I’m afraid the house doesn’t have enough value on its own, Alyce. You are as thrifty a wife as any man could hope for, and you do a wonderful job running the household, but our rate of savings on my sales earnings alone is too slow.”

  “I understand.”

  “You do want me to make something of myself. You’ve said that so many times.”

  “Perhaps I am wrong to put so much pressure on you.”

  “You only mean to encourage me. You must trust me,” Judd said. “I can take care of you.”

  “I do trust you.”

  She was giving up. Every objection she had to whatever Judd’s scheme was—Matthew didn’t know what it was—melted under the heat of his words.

  Grandpa Ted always talked about having made something of himself. He took Matthew fishing and told him stories of having come of age just when the depression of 1893 hit the country, yet he managed to start a business and support a family. He had done well for himself, he thought. His family never wanted for anything. Even when the stock market crashed in 1929, before Matthew was born, and the Great Depression strangled the country, his business survived because it was built on a solid foundation. He might have made more money if the Great Depression hadn’t happened, but he’d always looked after his family. A man just needs some ambition and cleverness. That’s what he always said. Ambition and cleverness. He wasn’t rich, but he did all right. He made something of himself.

  Grandpa Ted had a better house. It was bigger and closer to St. Louis and had a large yard on a hill where Matthew could roll in the grass in the summer and play in the snow in the winter. If Judd made something of himself, maybe Matthew’s mother could live in a nicer house again. She could go in the dress store and buy the green dress she liked so much instead of only looking at it in the window.

  “Perhaps my father could help,” his mother said downstairs.

  Matthew startled. Sometimes it seemed as if his mother was reading his mind, but never before had it happened when they were not in the same room.

  “No.” Judd’s denial was immediate and carried that tone that meant no arguing. “I am going to do this on my own. Either you trust me or you don’t. Despite all his big talk, Ted will have to work until the day he dies. His general store does just enough business to take in your brother, but Alyce, we must be realistic. He will have nothing to leave you when he is gone. As it is, Alan will take on debt unless he wants to go bankrupt.”

  “I certainly hope that doesn’t happen.”

  “Then it’s up to me to do this my way. Someday the tables may turn, and your family may need me to help look after them. Wouldn’t you like me to be in a position to do that?”

  Matthew squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t understand everything his father said, but he did know his mother was wilting. If she wanted Judd to make something of himself, she had to say yes.

  Did it matter? He would do it anyway, whatever it was.

  Matthew opened his eyes and leaned over the hole again, ignoring the crick developing in his neck. Judd stood and took Mama’s hand, pulling her to her feet.

  “I can’t stand the thought that you would ever want for anything,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and settling his head on the top of her head. “You deserve so much more than you have.”

  She fastened her arms around his waist. “I married a man with a good mind and good heart. I know I did.”

  “You married one who will love you to the end of the earth and to the end of time.”

  Mushy. Matthew and Jackson had been to moving pictures where people said things like that, so he knew it was a way grown-ups said they loved each other.

  Jackson’s father poked him in the tummy and said, “Love you, buddy.”

  Judd loved Alyce, and Alyce loved Matthew. That was as much as Matthew could hope for from his father.

  “Will you be home for church this weekend?” Mama asked.

  “I should be. I suspect the pastor wants to talk to me about joining the deacon board.”

  “Judd, do you really think you should?”

  “What I do helps families, Alyce. Isn’t that what deacons do? Help the orphans?”

  Now they were kissing.

  Matthew stepped over the squeaky board again and got back into bed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Nolan’s truck was new the last time he skied, so it had an outrageous number of miles on it now. But he kept up the maintenance faithfully, and the engine had never given him anything to worry about. After church and a quick change of clothes, he stowed his gear in the back and headed a few blocks down Main Street and turned left on Double Jack Street. The Inn at Hidden Run filled the second short block with its imposing expanse. He parked in front and went in the main entrance to fetch his ski instructor.

  “Leo, my friend.” In the parlor, Nolan slapped his palm into the open hand of the innkeeper. “Missed you at church.”

  “My week for the duty,” Leo said. “Somebody has to look after the guests at the Inn on Sunday mornings.”

  “Nia did an exceptionally fine job with the children’s sermon today.”

  Nia came into the parlor from the dining room, tossing her long, dark braid over one shoulder. “Are you talking about me?”

  “What if we are?” Leo asked. “We only say the good parts.”

  “It’s Sunday, and I’m feeling the glow of the Lord,” Nia said, “so I’ll let pass the suggestion that there are less good parts. Hello, Nolan.”

  “Jillian tells me the two of you are in cahoots to spend the afternoon together.”

  “We are. And I nearly dropped the entire breakfast tray this morning when Tucker Kintzler said he was going to teach you to ski.”

  “He’s not going to teach me to ski. I know how.”

  “Of course. I believe the phrase was ‘remedial recreational refreshment.’ Which could only have come from you.”

  Nolan wagged a finger at her. “Be careful, young lady, or I may never hire you to babysit my daughter again.”

  “I’m pretty sure you never paid me for the last time.”

  Leo howled. “Pay up, Nolan. With compound interest. Nia has her eye on a new sewing machine. Let’s see. She last babysat when Jillian was twelve. That’s sixteen years. Let’s be generous and just calculate on the basis of three percent interest.”

  “Oh, stop it, Leo.” Nia pointed toward the library across the hall. “He’s in there.”

  “What time did he get in last night?” Nolan asked.

  Nia’s eyebrows pushed up. “We don’t have a curfew for our guests.”

  “In other words, you know exactly when he came in.”

  “It was late,” she said. “He had his skis with him. He makes a hobby out of taking care of those things.”

  “Remedial recreational refreshment,” Leo said. “That’s a good one.”

  “Always happy to entertain.” Nolan pivoted and went across the hall. Tucker sat in one of the twin champagne-colored tufted armchairs.

  When he saw Nolan, he set his book on the round mahogany side table and stood. “Ready?”

  “What are you reading?”

  “Just some Colorado ski history. Leo has collected some interesting books.”

  Nolan glanced at the book�
�s title. It looked harmless, not something that would focus on lost ski resorts.

  “Let me help you with your gear.” Nolan scooped up the skis and poles. “Impressive!”

  “They do the job.” Tucker pushed his arms into his luminous green ski jacket, picked up his backpack, and grabbed his boots and helmet.

  “Did you bring these on a plane or ship them ahead?” Nolan maneuvered toward the front door.

  “Checked them on the plane. I don’t like to break the chain of custody any more than I have to.”

  “I don’t blame you, with beauties like these.”

  “They’re fast too. Wait till you see.”

  “Remedial, remember?”

  “It’ll come back to you before you know it.”

  They arranged Tucker’s equipment beside Nolan’s, which was far less fancy but had been deemed safe by Leif. If Nolan broke anything today, it would not be because of the age of his skis or even his boots. Nolan made sure the topper on the back of the truck was secured and motioned for Tucker to go around to the passenger side. Once they were buckled in, he pulled away from the curb and headed out on Main Street, west toward where he could pick up the highway into the mountains.

  “Do you think Leo and Nia realize how much sound carries through the heating system in that old house?” Tucker settled in comfortably.

  “What do you mean?” Nolan said. “They updated everything when they remodeled.”

  “The rooms are toasty,” Tucker said. “I have no doubt they have a modern, energy-efficient system now. But the old, empty channels are there, and they still carry sound.”

  “You may have a point. I’m not sure what they did about the old radiator pipes during the renovation.”

  “Who’s Meri?”

  Nolan glanced over at Tucker. “Were they talking about her?”

  “Yep. Nothing bad. In fact, they seem to like her a lot.”

  “We all do. She worked at the Inn for a few months—right up until about a month ago, actually.”

  “What happened?”

  “Happy ending,” Nolan said. “Jillian did her genealogist thing and helped Meri’s family understand their history better. Meri decided to go to graduate school in Denver.”