The Mulberry Tree Read online

  Influence and money, he thought. Someone with both had done this.

  He walked up the narrow steps to the front door of the house and raised his hand to knock, but the door opened at his touch. He knew the layout of the house well; years ago, he and Rick had forced a window open in the kitchen and often played inside. Also, he used to spend time alone in the house. But then one day he’d found the broken window repaired, and he couldn’t find a way in. He’d told his mother that someone had done some repairs on the old Hanley place, but she hadn’t had the time to be interested.

  “Hello?” he called as he stepped inside. “Anyone home?” When he stepped into the big living room, his eyes opened wide in shock. He’d always seen the house in a state of filth and disrepair. To see it clean and filled with furniture startled him. What was more, he liked the furniture. Most people in Calburn went to the local furniture discount store and bought “sets,” whole rooms full of furniture that matched.

  “Nice,” Matt said, as he ran his hand across the chintz-covered sofa.

  It was at that moment that he smelled food cooking—and the aroma almost made his knees give way under him. In the last months, Matt had found that after being away from his hometown for so many years, he’d become a little particular. He no longer liked food that had “helper” in the name, such as Hamburger Helper and Tuna Helper. Patsy said he’d become uppity, and maybe, when it came to food, he had.

  “Oh, hi,” said a woman as she walked into the living room through the doorway that he knew led to the kitchen. She was pretty, he thought. She was small and curvy, wearing light-colored trousers, tennis shoes—real tennis shoes, not those great, hulking running shoes—a T-shirt that didn’t seem to have any writing on it, and an apron. Her apron was white and covered with food stains.

  “You must be the contractor,” she said as she held a wooden spoon out toward him. “Would you mind tasting this? I’ve tried it so many times that I can’t tell anymore.”

  There was a yellowish gel on the end of the spoon that Matt wasn’t sure he wanted to taste, but the enticement of a pretty woman on the other end of it was more than he could pass up. He couldn’t help giving her a look to let her know that he knew she and his sister-in-law had been discussing him and sex.

  When Matt’s tongue made contact with the substance on the spoon, he forgot everything else. “What is that?” he asked, taking the spoon from her and licking it like a child.

  “Apple jam with ginger,” she said over her shoulder as she went back to the kitchen.

  Matt followed her like a puppy on a string. The sight of the kitchen made his eyes widen.

  “I know,” she said, looking up from a pot she was stirring. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

  He had to blink a couple of times as he looked in wonder about the place. The walls had holes in them where someone had ripped the overhead cabinets down. And the lower cabinets looked as though someone had taken a . . . “Chain saw?” he asked.

  “The gardeners,” she said as she stirred another pot. There were six burners on the big, professional range, and each one had a pot of something bubbling on top of it. Now that he was closer, he could smell cinnamon, cloves . . .

  As though he were a cartoon character following his nose, he let it pull him toward the big pots. “What’re you cooking?” he asked, trying to sound merely polite, rather than desperate.

  “It’s too much, isn’t it?” she said with a sigh. “I always do that. When I have a problem, I cook.”

  “Was this a big problem or a small one?” There was something red in the pan nearest him.

  “Big. This is only half of what I bought today. A funny thing happened to me today. I—” She stopped and looked up at him. “I’m sorry, I’m being rude. I’m Bailey James.” She wiped her hands on her apron and held one out for him to shake.

  “Matthew Longacre,” he said, holding her hand, but looking over her head into the pot behind the one filled with something red.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked. “I made myself dinner, but I haven’t had time to eat anything. Maybe you’d like to share it.”

  Matt pulled his eyes and his nose away from the food and looked down at her. Was this a trick? he wondered. Had Patsy told her he was coming over so that she could cook something to lure him? “Depends on what you’re having,” he said, with as much I-don’t-really-need-food in his voice as he could manage. He had, after all, had one of Ruth Ann’s “special” hamburgers.

  “Pigeons. I got them from a man down the road.”

  “Old man Shelby,” Matt said, looking at her with wide eyes. The cantankerous old farmer raised the pigeons and sold them to a fancy restaurant in D.C. As far as Matt knew, no one in Calburn had ever cooked a pigeon.

  “Yes, that was his name. Lovely man, and so helpful.”

  “Shelby,” Matt whispered. The man frequently chased people off his property with a loaded shotgun.

  “Do you like pigeon? You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

  “That depends on what Patsy puts in her meat loaf,” he said, but she just looked at him with a polite smile, not understanding his joke. “Yes,” he said at last. “I like pigeon.” I guess, he thought.

  “Good,” she said as she went to the huge stainless-steel-fronted refrigerator and pulled out a porcelain platter covered with plastic wrap. “I’ll just finishing grilling the livers, and dinner will be ready.”

  “Okay,” he said faintly. Livers. “What can I do to help?”

  “Would you mind if we ate outside? This house is . . . ” Trailing off, she waved her hand.

  “Dark and gloomy,” he said, smiling down at the top of her head. Grilled livers? Pigeons? Apples and ginger? And what was it that Patsy had said? That “the widow” had said she wouldn’t have sex with him? If this wasn’t sex, then—“I beg your pardon?” He hadn’t heard what she’d said. His taste buds were on such overload that his ears were shutting down.

  “In there, in the dining area, are utensils. Could you get them out, please?”

  “Sure,” he said, then nearly ran into the next room to the sideboard and opened drawers to remove knives, forks, and cloth napkins. He opened a door to get out a tablecloth, candlesticks, and candles. With his arms full, he walked through the kitchen, then halted as he looked at what she was doing. She was putting some small, juicy-looking red things on the plates with what looked like slices of chicken. “What are those?” he whispered.

  “Pickled grapes. If you’d rather not—”

  “No!” he said sharply, then when his voice squeaked, he cleared his throat. “I mean, no, I’m sure they’re delicious. I’m sure I’ll love them. I’m sure they’re the best pickled grapes that—I mean, well, I guess I’ll put these things outside.”

  Once he was outside, Matt had a talk with himself. “Okay, Longacre, calm down. You’re making a fool of yourself,” he said as he spread the cloth on the ground, then set the candlesticks on top of it. “Stay cool. Stay calm. Get hold of yourself. You’re selling yourself out for some chopped liver.” That analogy made him laugh a bit.

  “You do that too,” Bailey said as she set two full plates down on the cloth.

  Matt could hardly take his eyes off the food. It looked as though she’d made a paste out of the grilled livers, smeared it on toast, then put the sliced pigeon meat on top, with the pickled grapes sprinkled about. There was salad on the side, and it wasn’t that tasteless, colorless white lettuce that Patsy and all of Calburn served, but dark green and red, curly and straight lettuces. “I do what?” he managed to whisper. He was on his knees, in a posture usually reserved for worship.

  “You talk to yourself.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” he said. A hypnotist’s subject had never stared so unblinkingly as he was staring at that food.

  “Go ahead, dig in,” she said as she sat down on the opposite side of the tablecloth and put her plate on her lap.

  Slowly, with hands that he hoped weren’t trembling, he picked up the plate, sat dow