Nora Roberts - Tribute

“The writing’s similar. Not… well, not exactly exact. See the S’s in the card? When he starts a word-son, small-with an S, it’s in curvy print. In the letter-sorry, sympathy-traditional lowercase cursive.”

"But the uppercase T’s are written the same way, and the Y’s. The slant of the writing. It’s very close. And they were written years apart.”

“ My and my in both really look like the same hand, and the uppercase I’s, but the uppercase D’s, not so much.” Ford knew he looked with an artist’s eye, and wasn’t sure if that was a plus or a minus. “Then again, in the card, that’s a signature. Some people write the first letter of their signature differently than they might a word. I don’t know, Cilla.”

“Results, inconclusive. I don’t suppose you know any handwriting experts.”

“We could find one.” He looked up, into her eyes. “Do you want to go that route?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know. Damn it. No easy answers.”

“Maybe we could get our hands on a sample closer to when the letters were written. I can ask Brian to try for that.”

“Let’s just put it away for now.” She folded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope. “We know one thing after this. It wasn’t Hennessy. I’d forgotten about the letter after Johnnie’s death. No way, even if he was crazy in love, would he have written that after the accident. Not when he was with his own son in the hospital.”

“You’re right.”

“So, if I had a list, I’d be able to cross a name off. That’s something. I guess it’s going to have to be enough for now. At least for now.”

Ford closed the book, put it back on the shelf. He turned to her, took her hand. “What do you say we go buy a grill?”

“I’d say that’s exactly what I want to do.”

But he left the monogrammed note on his desk when he went to dress. He could find a graphologist. Someone outside Virginia to whom the name Andrew Morrow meant nothing. And he could see where that led.

CILLA’S PLEASURE WHEN her walnut flooring finally arrived Tuesday morning hit a major roadblock before noon when her tile layer stormed over to her work area beside the barn.

“Hi, Stan. You’re not scheduled until Thursday. Are…”

She found herself backpedaling quickly as she caught the murderous look in his eye. "Hey, hey, what’s the problem?”

“You think you can treat people that way? You think you can talk to people that way?”

“What? What?” He backed her right up into the side of the barn. Too shocked at seeing the usually affable Stan with a vein throbbing in the center of his forehead, Cilla held up her hands as much in defense as a gesture of peace.

“You think ’cause you come from money and got yourself on TV you’re better than the rest of us?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where-”

“You got some nerve, goddamn it, calling my wife, talking to her like that.”

“I never-”

“You got a problem with my work, you talk to me. You got that? Don’t you go calling my house and yelling at my wife.”

“Stan, I’ve never spoken to your wife.”

“You calling her a liar now?” He shoved his face into hers, so close she could taste his rage.

“I’m not calling her anything.” Alarm lumped at the base of Cilla’s throat, so she spaced her words carefully. “I don’t know her, and I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“I come home and she’s so upset she can barely talk. Started crying. The only reason I didn’t come straight over here last night is she begged me not to, and I didn’t want to leave her when she was in that state. She’s got hypertension, and you go setting her off ’cause you decide you don’t like my work.”

“And I’m telling you, I never called your house, I never spoke to your wife, and I’m not dissatisfied with your work. In fact, the opposite. Or why in God’s name did I contract you to lay the floor in my kitchen?”

“You tell me, goddamn it.”

“Well, I can’t!” she shouted back at him. “What time was I supposed to have made this call?”

“About ten o’clock last night, you know damn well. I get home about ten-thirty, and she’s lying down, flushed and shaking because you screamed at her like a crazy woman.”

“Have you ever heard me scream like a crazy woman? I was at Ford’s last night at ten o’clock. I nodded off in front of the TV. Ask him. Jesus, Stan, you’ve been working here off and on for months now. You should know I don’t handle things that way.”

“Said it was you. Cilla McGowan.” But puzzlement began to show through the temper. “You told Kay she was a stupid hick, just like most of the people around here. How I couldn’t lay tile for shit, and you were going to make sure word got out. When I lost work, I’d have nobody to blame but my own lazy ass. How maybe you’d sue me over the crap job I did for you.”

“If your wife’s a hick, I am, too. I live here now. I don’t contract with subs who do crap work. In fact, I recommended you to my stepmother just last week, if she ever talks my father into updating their master bath.” She realized she was breathless from reaction, but the alarm had dissolved. “Why the hell would I do that, Stan, if I thought your work was crap?”

“She didn’t just make it up.”

“Okay.” She had to draw in air. “Okay. Is she sure whoever called gave my name?”

"Cilla McGowan, and then Kay said you… they,” he corrected, obviously ready to give Cilla the benefit of the doubt, “said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ in that bitchy way people do when they think they’re important. Then just laid into her. It took me almost an hour to calm her down when I got home from the summer league. I had to make her take a Tylenol P.M. to help her sleep. She was that upset.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry somebody used my name to upset her. I don’t know why…” Pressure lowered onto her chest, pushed and pushed. “The flooring supplier said I called in and changed my order. Walnut to oak. But I didn’t. I thought there’d just been a mix-up. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe somebody’s screwing with me.”

Stan stood a moment, stuck his hands in his pockets, pulled them out again. “You never made that call.”

“No, I didn’t. Stan, I’m trying to build a reputation, and a business here. I’m trying to build relationships with subs and service people. When someone broke in and went at the bathrooms, you juggled me in for the repair and re-lay, and I know you cut me a break on the labor.”

“You had a problem. And the fact is, I was proud of that work and wanted to make it right.”

“I don’t know how to make this right with your wife. I could talk to her, try to explain.”

“Better let me do that.” He blew out a breath. “Sorry I came at you.”

“I’d have done the same in your place.”

“Who’d do something like this? Mess with you, get Kay all upset?”

“I don’t know.” Cilla thought of Mrs. Hennessy. Her husband was doing two years in a psych facility. “But I hope I can head it off before it happens again.”

“I guess I’d better swing by home, straighten this out with Kay.”

“Okay. You still on for Thursday?”

His smile was a little sheepish. “Yeah. Ah, you got any reason to call me at home, maybe you should come up with a code word or something. ”

“Maybe I should.”

She stood in the shadow of her barn, with trim propped against the wall and laid out to dry, stretched across her sawhorses. And wondered how many times she’d have to pay for the crimes, sins, mistakes of others.

Cilla stood in her bedroom, staring at the freshly painted walls while her father tapped the lid back on the open can of paint. She watched the way the strong midday light flooded the room, and sent those walls to glowing.