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Authors: Irene Radford
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and ended her repeated demands for Dusty to read these papers.
No one objected when Chase removed them from Mabel’s reception and dispatch desk. The entire police department was in a bit of an uproar, not knowing how to replace the woman who had always been there as dispatcher, information officer, mother hen, and organizer. On top of that, a big accident on the interstate had demanded the attention of every spare officer, including Chase.
“Chase is too busy to handle this. So I guess I have to read and report,” she mumbled. Somehow, Mabel’s urgency and the locked drawer suggested a demand for privacy. Dusty never did see how Chase managed to open the lock without a key. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
She cleared and cleaned a light table of fragile potsherds and bits of iron from an archaeological dig conducted by community college students. Page by page, she laid out the documents without reading any, until she could view them all. This was her work pattern, get an overview of all the artifacts, then examine each one more closely.
The top page acknowledged the property at Mabel Gardiner’s address to be a historical house of significance to the city of Skene Falls and therefore it could not be torn down or the exterior altered in such a way as to detract from the architecture typical of its building date of 1883. The document went on to describe the home as the original carriage house and gatekeeper dwelling for a now derelict mansion on the corner of that block known as the Corbett House.
“That old? I hadn’t realized the foundations dated that far back.” Dusty had reviewed and filled out enough applications for historic designation as part of her Masters degree to recognize that nothing varied from the usual.
She moved on to the next paper. The Last Will and Testament of Mabel Louise Gardiner. Dusty’s gaze riveted on the document. She felt as if she was invading the privacy of a respected elder statesman—er—stateswoman? Still, Mabel had demanded Dusty and Chase read the documents in their entirety.
She checked the date. Two months before, the day of the Masque Ball and the day Chase had proposed to Dusty. She raised her eyebrows in wonder. The old woman—no one in town knew exactly how old—had an agenda more complex than Dusty figured. She wound her way through the legalese, familiar with the format from historical documents. Wills said a lot about people and ways of life in previous eras. So did household inventories, and Mabel had a complete one attached to the will.
“Oh, my!” Dusty gasped as she read the first bequest. “This can’t be.”
She read it again. Then she whipped out her cell phone.
No signal in the basement.
She moved to stand beneath one of the high windows at ground level. Still no signal. Too many clouds.
Biting her lip, she put all the papers back in the envelope, wound the string around the button to close it and carried it upstairs to her office.
She heard voices from the second-story bedrooms. M’Velle must be doing a tour. Quickly, Dusty checked the downstairs exhibits starting with the original log cabin space that was now the front parlor and then all the mismatched additions. No one else wandered about, not even the volunteers who came in each afternoon to dust and vacuum. She made a quick call from her office phone to the little house across the park grounds that served as gift shop and ticket sales.
“No guests waiting for a tour,” Meggie, the other high school work-study student reported. “Though I’m having trouble with my costume for the parade. I just can’t see myself as the ghost of a missionary wife. Can’t I do something more interesting, Dusty?”
“Not unless you want to be the ghost of the town Madame. But I think Mrs. Shiregrove has dibs on that job.”
Meggie grumbled something and hung up.
Dusty slipped into her office at the back of the building, adjacent to the enclosed sun porch that had become the employee lounge
No one objected when Chase removed them from Mabel’s reception and dispatch desk. The entire police department was in a bit of an uproar, not knowing how to replace the woman who had always been there as dispatcher, information officer, mother hen, and organizer. On top of that, a big accident on the interstate had demanded the attention of every spare officer, including Chase.
“Chase is too busy to handle this. So I guess I have to read and report,” she mumbled. Somehow, Mabel’s urgency and the locked drawer suggested a demand for privacy. Dusty never did see how Chase managed to open the lock without a key. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
She cleared and cleaned a light table of fragile potsherds and bits of iron from an archaeological dig conducted by community college students. Page by page, she laid out the documents without reading any, until she could view them all. This was her work pattern, get an overview of all the artifacts, then examine each one more closely.
The top page acknowledged the property at Mabel Gardiner’s address to be a historical house of significance to the city of Skene Falls and therefore it could not be torn down or the exterior altered in such a way as to detract from the architecture typical of its building date of 1883. The document went on to describe the home as the original carriage house and gatekeeper dwelling for a now derelict mansion on the corner of that block known as the Corbett House.
“That old? I hadn’t realized the foundations dated that far back.” Dusty had reviewed and filled out enough applications for historic designation as part of her Masters degree to recognize that nothing varied from the usual.
She moved on to the next paper. The Last Will and Testament of Mabel Louise Gardiner. Dusty’s gaze riveted on the document. She felt as if she was invading the privacy of a respected elder statesman—er—stateswoman? Still, Mabel had demanded Dusty and Chase read the documents in their entirety.
She checked the date. Two months before, the day of the Masque Ball and the day Chase had proposed to Dusty. She raised her eyebrows in wonder. The old woman—no one in town knew exactly how old—had an agenda more complex than Dusty figured. She wound her way through the legalese, familiar with the format from historical documents. Wills said a lot about people and ways of life in previous eras. So did household inventories, and Mabel had a complete one attached to the will.
“Oh, my!” Dusty gasped as she read the first bequest. “This can’t be.”
She read it again. Then she whipped out her cell phone.
No signal in the basement.
She moved to stand beneath one of the high windows at ground level. Still no signal. Too many clouds.
Biting her lip, she put all the papers back in the envelope, wound the string around the button to close it and carried it upstairs to her office.
She heard voices from the second-story bedrooms. M’Velle must be doing a tour. Quickly, Dusty checked the downstairs exhibits starting with the original log cabin space that was now the front parlor and then all the mismatched additions. No one else wandered about, not even the volunteers who came in each afternoon to dust and vacuum. She made a quick call from her office phone to the little house across the park grounds that served as gift shop and ticket sales.
“No guests waiting for a tour,” Meggie, the other high school work-study student reported. “Though I’m having trouble with my costume for the parade. I just can’t see myself as the ghost of a missionary wife. Can’t I do something more interesting, Dusty?”
“Not unless you want to be the ghost of the town Madame. But I think Mrs. Shiregrove has dibs on that job.”
Meggie grumbled something and hung up.
Dusty slipped into her office at the back of the building, adjacent to the enclosed sun porch that had become the employee lounge
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