Free 18 Deader Homes and Gardens by Joan Hess Page A

invited all of us to a party. Felicia was apoplectic about the quantity of alcoholic beverages, and she and Charles stalked off after half an hour. In truth, it was uncomfortable for all the family members. The boys continued to have boisterous parties every week or so. I could hear them from the Old Tavern. However, the parties became less frequent and then stopped. I would run into Winston wandering in the woods, his shoulders slumped and his eyes dull. He seemed to become more depressed over the three years. The last time I saw him, he was sitting on a fallen tree trunk, staring at the ground. That was in early March. I was concerned because it was cold and he wasn’t wearing a coat or gloves. He wouldn’t even acknowledge my presence. I felt so helpless.”
    “You think he committed suicide?” I asked gently.
    Nattie nodded. “I think he took the fishing gear as a ploy so that it would look like an accident. He drank the wine to rally his courage and then flung himself in the freezing water.”
    “Did he own a fishing pole?”
    “It’s hard to imagine that he did,” she said slowly. “He never fished or hunted when he was a child. He hated to kill things, even worms. That’s a good point, Claire. The only thing I can come up with is that Moses left a pole and a tackle box down there. He loves to go fishing in all weather. If it ever got so cold that the stream froze over, he’d be out in the middle of it, cutting a hole in the ice. Luckily for me, he never brings his scaly trophies home. I’m not keen on cleaning fish.”
    Handling fish guts was not my idea of a pleasant pastime, either, so I returned to the pertinent topic. “Maybe it was a ploy, as you suggested.”
    “Poor, sweet Winston. If only I could have convinced him to tell me the truth about how he felt, I could have helped him. We were so close once upon a time.” She sighed. “As they, whoever they are, say, ‘Of all the words of mice and men…’”
    “Kurt Vonnegut, actually. You shouldn’t feel responsible, Nattie. You tried.”
    “And failed. The Hollow family may not be able to trace its lineage to the Mayflower, and there have been more scoundrels than heroes, but I hate to see the family reduced to suicide, dementia, feral children, and whatever lies in the future. Once there are no more direct descendants to inherit the property, some real estate developer will bulldoze the greenhouses and put in a fancy gated community.”
    I sympathized with her bleak vision, but I wasn’t in the mood for maudlin sentiments. “Maybe Pandora Butterfly’s children will grow up to become lawyers and engineers, marry, and produce a new crop of happy little Hollows.”
    She laughed. “In a pig’s eye. Pandora plans to home-school them, so the odds of them ever learning to read are minuscule. One can only pray that they’ll end up in prison instead of being killed by a drug cartel. Well, this is my worry, not yours. You must have more entertaining things to do than listen to the creaking branches of the family tree.”
    “I enjoyed talking with you,” I said as I stood up, “and I’m eager to learn how to make your cinnamon rolls.”
    She insisted on wrapping the remaining ones in a napkin so that I could take them home. I did not object. After a brief hug, I went to my car and placed my precious bundle on the passenger’s seat. When I turned around to start the car, Moses’s face was in the window.
    “Whatcha got there?” he asked with a leer.
    “Just something Nattie gave me,” I said to let him know I wasn’t about to share. “How are you today?”
    He rested his arms on the windowsill. “Got a toothache, which is strange since I ain’t got teeth. So you and Nattie were talking? Did she tell you a bunch of lies? I swear, that woman would try to persuade you that the sun rises in the west if she was of a mind to.”
    “She and I were having tea.”
    “Cinnamon rolls, too. I smell it on your breath.”
    I could smell liquor on