Suspicions: A Twist of FateTears of Pride

  “Fine, Noah,” was the cool automatic response. “But your father isn’t feeling well at all.” Beneath Katharine’s soft, feminine voice was a will of iron.

  Noah’s jaw tightened involuntarily, but he managed to keep his voice pleasant and calm. “I’d like to speak to him.”

  “I’m sorry, Noah. That’s out of the question. He’s resting right now.” His mother’s voice continued to drone in low, unemotional tones, giving Noah an updated prognosis of his father’s condition. As he listened, Noah rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and began to pace angrily in front of the desk. He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand while he clutched the other in a death grip around the telephone receiver. His knuckles whitened in annoyance as Katharine continued to speak tonelessly to him from somewhere in northern Mexico. Noah cast a dark glance out of the window into the rising fog and hoped for a break in the one-sided conversation.

  It was obvious that Katharine Wilder was protecting her husband from the demands of his son. Noah could envision the tight, uncompromising line of his mother’s small mouth and the coldness in her distant blue eyes as she spoke to him from some three thousand miles distance.

  “So you can see, Noah, it looks as if we have no other choice but to stay in Guaymas for at least another two months…possibly three.”

  “I can’t wait that long!”

  There was a long unyielding sigh from his mother. Her voice sounded a little more faint. The frail telephone connection to Mexico seemed to be failing. “I don’t see that you have much of a choice, Noah. The doctors all agree that your father is much too ill to make the exhaustive trip back to Seattle. There’s no way he could hope to run the company. You’ll just have to hang on a little longer.”

  “And what about Sean?” Noah demanded hotly. There was no response. Noah’s voice quieted slightly. “Just let me talk to Ben.”

  “You can’t be serious! Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? Your father is resting now—he can’t possibly come to the phone!”

  “I need to talk to him. This wasn’t part of the bargain,” Noah warned, not bothering to hide his exasperation.

  “Perhaps later…”

  “Now!” Noah’s voice had risen as his impatience began to get the better of him.

  “I’m sorry, Noah. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Don’t hang up—”

  A click from a small town in Mexico severed the connection.

  “Damn!” Noah slammed the receiver down and smashed one fist into an open palm. He uttered a stream of invectives partially aimed at his father, but mainly at himself. How could he have been so gullible as to have agreed to run the investment firm while Ben was recuperating? It had been an emotional decision and a bad one at that. Noah wasn’t prone to sentimental decisions, not since the last one he had made, nearly sixteen years before. But this time, because of his father’s delicate condition, Noah had let his emotions dictate to him. He shook his head at his own folly. He was a damned fool. “Son of a…”

  “Pardon me?” Maggie asked as she breezed into the office in her usual efficient manner. Nearly sixty, with flaming red hair and sporting a brightly colored print dress, she was the picture of unflappable competency.

  “Nothing,” Noah grumbled, but the fire in his bright blue eyes refused to die. He slumped into his father’s desk chair and attempted to cool his smoldering rage.

  “Good!” Maggie returned with an understanding smile. She placed a stack of correspondence on the corner of the desk.

  Noah regarded the letters with a frown. “What are those?”

  “Oh, just the usual—except for the letter on the top of the pile. It’s from the insurance company. I think you should read it.” Maggie’s friendly smile began to fade.

  Noah slid a disgusted glance at the document in question and then mentally dismissed it as he looked back at the secretary. She noticed his dismissive gesture, and a perturbed expression puckered her lips.

  “Would you put in a call to Betty Averill in the Portland office? Tell her I won’t be back as soon as I had planned. Have her send anything she or Jack can’t handle up here. If she has any questions, she can call me.”

  Maggie’s intense gaze sharpened. “Isn’t your father coming back on the first?” she asked. Maggie normally didn’t pry, but this time she couldn’t help herself. Noah hadn’t been himself lately, and Maggie laid most of the blame on his strong-willed son. The kid was sixteen and hell-on-wheels.

  “Apparently not,” Noah muttered in response.

  “Then you’ll be staying for a few more months?”

  Noah narrowed his eyes. “It’s beginning to look that way, isn’t it?”

  Maggie tried to ignore the rage in Noah’s eyes. She tapped a brightly tipped finger on the correspondence. “If you’re staying on as head of Wilder Investments—”

  “Only temporarily!”

  Maggie shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, but perhaps you should read this insurance inquiry.”

  “Is it that important?” Noah asked dubiously.

  Maggie frowned as she thought. “It could be. That’s your decision.”

  “All right…all right, I’ll take a look,” Noah reluctantly agreed. Before Maggie could back out of the office, he called to her. “Oh, Maggie, would you do me a favor?” She nodded. “Please keep calling the house, every half an hour if you have to. And if you do happen to get hold of my son, let me know immediately. I want to talk to him!”

  Maggie’s smile was faintly sad. “Will do.” She closed the door softly behind her.

  When Maggie was gone, Noah reached for the document that she had indicated. “What the hell is this?” he muttered as his dark brows pulled together in concentration. He scanned the letter from the insurance company quickly and several phrases caught his attention: nonpayment of benefits…conflict of interest…lawsuit contesting the beneficiary…Cascade Valley Winery.

  “Damn!” Noah wadded the letter into a tight ball and tossed it furiously into the wastebasket. He pushed down the button on the intercom and waited for Maggie’s voice to answer. “Get me the president of Pac-West Insurance Company on the phone, now!” he barked without waiting for her response.

  The last thing he needed was more problems with the insurance proceeds for the winery located in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. He had hoped that by now the insurance company would have straightened everything out, even with the suspected arson complicating matters. Apparently he had been wrong, very wrong. Maggie’s efficient voice interrupted his conjecture.

  “Joseph Gallager, president of Pac-West Insurance, is on line one,” she announced briskly.

  “Good.” He raised his hand to connect with Gallager, but paused. Instead he spoke to the secretary. “Do you have the name of the private investigator that my father uses?”

  “Mr. Simmons,” Maggie supplied.

  “That’s the one. As soon as I’m off the line with Gallager, I might want to talk to Simmons.” An uneasy feeling settled over him at the mention of the wily detective. “Oh, Maggie…did you call the house?”

  “Yes, sir. No one answered.”

  Noah’s blue eyes darkened. “Thanks. Keep trying,” he commanded through tightly clenched teeth. Where was Sean? Noah turned his dark thoughts away from his defiant son and back to the problems in the office. Hopefully, the president of Pac-West Insurance could answer a few questions about the fire at the winery and why the insurance benefits hadn’t been paid to Wilder Investments. If not, Noah would be forced to contact Anthony Simmons. Noah’s lip curled into an uncompromising frown as he thought about the slick private investigator that Ben insisted upon keeping on the company payroll. Though he hated to rely on the likes of Simmons, Noah didn’t have much of a choice. If the insurance company refused to pay because of the suspected arson, maybe Simmons could come up with a culprit for the crime and get rid of any lingering suspicion that Wilder Investments had had something to do with the blaze. Unless, of course, Ben Wilder knew someth
ing he wasn’t telling his son.

  * * *

  The law offices of Fielding & Son were sedately conservative. Located on the third floor of a nineteenth-century marble bank building, they were expensively decorated without seeming garish. Thick rust-colored carpet covered the floors, and the walls gleamed with finely polished cherrywood. Verdant Boston ferns and lush philodendrons overflowed the intricately woven baskets suspended from the ceiling. Leather-bound editions of law texts adorned shelves, and polished brass lamps added a warmth to the general atmosphere.

  Despite all of the comfortable furnishings, Sheila was tense. She could feel the dampness of her palms, though they were folded on her lap.

  Jonas Fielding mopped the sweat from his receding hairline with a silk handkerchief. Although it was only late May, the weather in the valley was unseasonably warm, and the small, delicately framed woman sitting opposite him added to his discomfort. Her large gray eyes were shadowed in pain from the recent loss of her father. There was an innocence about her, though she was dressed in a tailored business suit. Jonas couldn’t help but remember Sheila Lindstrom as a little girl.

  Jonas had practiced law for nearly forty years. Though he could have retired years ago, he hadn’t, and it was times like this that he wished he had left the firm to his younger associates. Looking at Sheila, he felt very old, and the burden of his seventy years seemed great.

  He should have become accustomed to grieving relatives long ago, but he hadn’t, especially when the deceased had been one of his friends. Working with family members for the estate was a dismal part of his job, one that he would rather sluff off on a young associate. However, in this case it was impossible. Oliver Lindstrom had been a personal friend of Jonas Fielding. Hence, he had known Oliver’s daughter, Sheila, all of her thirty-one years.

  Jonas cleared his throat and wondered why the devil the air-conditioning in the building wasn’t working properly. The offices seemed uncomfortably confining this afternoon. Perhaps it was his imagination. Perhaps dealing with Sheila was the cause of his irritability. He detested this part of his job. To give himself a little space, he stood up and walked over to the window before addressing her.

  “I understand that all of this business about your father’s will and the complication with the insurance proceeds is a bit much for you now, because of your father’s death.” Sheila’s small face whitened and she pinched her lower lip between her teeth. “But you have to face facts…”

  “What facts?” she asked shakily. Her voice was dry with emotions that wouldn’t leave her. “Are you trying to tell me something I already know—that everyone in this valley, and for that matter the entire Pacific Northwest, thinks my father committed suicide?” Sheila’s hands were shaking. It was difficult but she held on to her poise, holding back the tears that were burning in her throat. “Well, I don’t believe it, not one word of it! I won’t!” Nervously she ran her fingers through the thick, chestnut strands of her hair. “You were a friend of my dad. You don’t think that he actually took his own life, do you?” Round, gray eyes challenged the attorney.

  The question Jonas had been avoiding made him squirm against the window ledge. He rubbed his hands on the knees of his suit pants, stalling for time to compose a suitable answer. He wanted to be kind. “I don’t know, Sheila. It seems unlikely…. Oliver had such zest for life…. But, sometimes, when his back is up against the wall, a man will do just about anything to preserve what he has worked for all of his life.”

  Sheila closed her eyes. “Then you do believe it,” she whispered, feeling suddenly small and very much alone. “Just like the police and the press. They all think that Dad started the fire himself and got caught in it by mistake…or that he took his own life.”

  “No one suggested—”

  “No one had to! Just look at the front page of the paper! It’s been four weeks, and the newspapers are still having a field day!”

  “Cascade Valley employed a lot of people from around here. Since it’s been closed, unemployment in the valley has doubled. There’s no two ways about it, Sheila. Cascade Valley is news. Big news.” Jonas’s voice was meant to be soothing, but Sheila refused to be comforted.

  “I guess I don’t see why everyone seems to think that my father killed himself. Why would he do that—for the money?”

  “Who knows?” Jonas shrugged his aging shoulders as he made his way to the desk. “All of the talk—it’s only speculation.”

  “It’s slander!” Sheila accused, lifting her regal chin upward defiantly. “My father was a decent, law-abiding citizen, and nothing will change that. He would never…” Her voice cracked with the strain of the past month as she remembered the gentle man who had raised her. Since her mother’s death five years before, Sheila had become closer to her father. The last time she had seen him alive, just last spring vacation, he had been so robust and healthy that Sheila still found it impossible to believe he was gone. When she had visited him, he had been remote and preoccupied, but Sheila had chalked it up to the problems that the winery was experiencing at the time. Although her father had seemed distant, Sheila was sure that no problem at Cascade Valley had been serious enough to cause him to take his life. He had been stronger than that.

  Sheila managed to compose herself. There was too much pride in her slender body to allow Jonas Fielding to witness the extent of her grief. “Is there any way I can get the winery operating again?”

  Jonas shook his balding head. “I doubt it. The insurance company is balking at paying the settlement because of the possibility of arson.”

  Sheila sighed wearily, and her shoulders sagged. Jonas hesitated before continuing. “There’s more to it than that,” he admitted.

  Sheila’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”

  “The papers that were in your father’s safety deposit box—did you read them?”

  “No…I was too upset at the time. I brought everything here.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Why?”

  “I found the partnership papers among the rest. Did you know that Oliver didn’t own the business alone?”

  “Yes.”

  The elderly attorney seemed to relax a little. “Have you ever met his business partner?”

  “Years ago—when I was very young. But what does Ben Wilder have to do with anything?” she asked, confused by the twist in the conversation and Jonas’s inability to meet her gaze.

  “As I understand it, when the business was purchased nearly eighteen years ago, Ben and Oliver were equal partners.” Sheila nodded, remembering the day when her father had made the ecstatic announcement that he had purchased the rustic old winery nestled deep in the eastern foothills of the Cascades. “However, during the course of the last few years, Oliver was forced to borrow money from Wilder Investments…to cover expenses. He put up his share of the business as collateral.”

  A tight, uneasy feeling gripped Sheila’s stomach. “You didn’t know about that?”

  Jonas shook his head. “All the legal work was done by Ben Wilder’s attorneys. I would have advised Oliver against it.”

  Sheila suddenly felt guilty as she remembered the course of events over the past five years. “Why exactly did Dad borrow the money?”

  Jonas was evasive. He rubbed his palms together. “Several reasons…the economy had been rotten…and then there was a problem with the tampered bottles in Montana. From what I can see in the ledgers, sales have been down for several years.”

  “But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?” Sheila whispered. Her throat became dry as she began to understand the reasons for her father’s debt to Ben Wilder. It was her fault! Guilt, in an overpowering rush, settled in her heart.

  Jonas dreaded what he had to say. “Your father took out the loan four years ago.”

  Sheila blanched. Her suspicions were confirmed.

  Hesitating only slightly, the old attorney continued. “As I remember, there were several reasons for the loan. The most i
mportant thing at the time was that Oliver wanted to help you recover from your divorce from Jeff. Your father thought you should go back to school for your master’s degree. He didn’t want for you or Emily to be denied anything you might need, just because your marriage had failed.”

  “Oh, God, no!” Sheila sighed. She closed her eyes against the truth and sank lower into the chair. At the time of the divorce she hadn’t wanted to take her father’s money, but he hadn’t given her much of a choice. She was a single mother without a job or the skill for decent employment. Her father had insisted that she attend a private school in California where the tuition along with the living expenses for herself and Emily were outrageous. Oliver had forced the money upon her, telling her that the California sun would help her forget about Jeff and the unhappy marriage. Begrudgingly she had accepted her father’s help, assuring herself that she would pay him back with interest.

  That had been over four years ago, and so far, Sheila hadn’t managed to pay him a penny in return. Now her father was dead. He had never once mentioned that Cascade Valley was in financial trouble. Then again, Sheila had never asked. Guilt took a stranglehold of her throat.

  Jonas handed her the partnership papers. She glanced through them and saw that the attorney’s assessment of the situation was correct. After perusing the documents, Sheila raised her head and handed the papers back to her father’s elderly friend.

  “If only your father had come to me,” Jonas offered. “I could have avoided this mess.”

  “Why didn’t he?”

  “Pride, I’d guess. It’s all water under the bridge now.”

  “There’s a letter demanding repayment of the loan to Wilder Investments,” Sheila thought aloud.

  “I know.”

  “But it wasn’t written by Ben Wilder. The signature is…” Sheila’s voice failed her, and her brows drew together as she recognized the name.

  “Noah Wilder. Ben’s son.”

  Sheila became pensive. She didn’t know much about the man; Noah Wilder had always been a mystery to her. Despite her grief for her father, she was intrigued. “Is he in charge now?”