Yesterday's Shadows

By Juanita Jones Neff

Newly minted lawyer, Tina Willet, held many different jobs during her struggle to put herself through college and law school. Now she finds spending her summers as a landman, securing leases for prospective oil companies, is an asset nothing else could have given her for the plans she has for her future.
She wants to practice law in Denver with a firm emphasizing environmental law. The firm where she has been clerking during school terms has offered to keep her on, even though she had been arrested for attracting the attention of the authorities during a protest against gene modified grains. It was her misfortune to be handcuffed and taken to the police station. Her mug shot was picked up by reporters and the whole riotous event went viral. Unfortuately, the name of her law firm was included in the story and the firm immediately became the target of a torrent of emails, either berating her involvement in the protest, or supporting her passion for the anti “frankenfood” movement.
Instead of firing her, her superiors took advantage of her notoriety and immediately brought her to the forefront of the courtroom, albeit in a small secretarial role, while they tried a case suing GMO corporations for supposedly allowing rogue seed to escape onto neighboring farms. The firm won the case, with the offending companies paying large penalties for breaking the Federal Patent Seed regulations and the affected farmers also receiving significant amounts in damages.
The trial over, Tina was assigned to sort through the stored emails and secure for future reference anything that might be of use in future GMO cases. Among the emails was one addressed to her personally. The name of the sender sent shivers down Tina’s back as memories of the tragic events of the past flooded through her mind; the lifechanging event involving the murder of her grandmother, the accusation and conviction of her young aunt, all because of her aunt’s reputed love affair with the man whose name Tina was now staring at.
Clayton Ross was asking for her private email address. He wanted information on how you could identify the modified grain if it had been introduced into one of his fields. However, he cautioned, he wished to proceed secretly because the culprits were local businessmen and most likely members of Tina’s extended family.
Did she dare to revisit all the pain, all the scandal, even the possible danger that her presence might reopen the now very cold case?
Her parents wouldn’t approve, she knew that, exposing her family, her sister, to a cause they had decided to let lie in the past. On the other hand, she knew her beloved aunt had been innocent. Her testimony ignored because of her age and her obvious loyalty to her aunt, the trial had surged ahead toward an injustice that now could never be corrected. But Tina wondered, could truth still prevail?
She replies to the email and learns that there is also a minor oil boom blossoming in Ravenhill. What could be more convenient for stirring up trouble than contested mineral leases. Right up her alley. She mentions to the Senior lawyers in her current firm that there is the possibility of another lucrative case of GMO mishandling near her hometown. She adds that she has a lead on reliable inside information that she could access while investigating possible benefits of the oil rush to her family. What she asks for in return, is a referral and a chance to apply at several of the many high quality environmental law firms based in Denver.
Her superiors agreed and Tina returns to Ravenhill and the place and people of her youth to confront the trauma of the past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Juanita Jones Neff
• Release date: Aug 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9780692285367

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YESTERDAY’S SHADOWS

By

Juanita Jones Neff

Copywrite 2014 Juanita Jones Neff

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Acknowledgments

A fervent thank you to my first readers for their patience and support in making this book into an ebook for modern access. To quote and old friend, daughters are the flowers in my garden, as is my son, for patiently correcting legal procedures I might have otherwise erroneously described. And also to Julie Christensen for her generous guidance.

CHAPTER ONE

A cloud of pigeons burst forth from the gaping hole that was once used for loading hay into the barn loft. Tina, startled, sank back into the driver’s seat and waited for the flock to settle down onto their roosts or duck around and between broken glass shards clinging to the framework of the barn’s small windows. They strutted in and out, sideling along the gabled roof, chirring and cooing, maybe glad to have a change from the daily boredom of life in an abandoned building.

Smiling at their self-important show, she stepped from her car onto the crisp brown grass that had once been a lush green lawn on the prosperous Stinson Farm.

Everywhere her eyes met destruction or, at least, neglect, from the pane less windows of the granary to the wheel of the windmill, broken, with its vanes scattered and strewn for yards into the empty pasture.

It had been too long. Seeing what the years of neglect had wrought shocked the image she had been carrying in her mind for eight long years. She traced with her eyes the steel frame of the windmill bent by some storm, earthward, as twisted and tortured as the old woman who had died here. She shuddered at the memory and slammed the door of the red rental car hard enough to make its light body rock, the sound sending the pigeons aloft again in a fury of wings.

Here at last, Aunt Dorrie, she muttered aloud, pushing back strands of dark hair that were drifting across her face in the light breeze.

She swept the disastrous yard with her phone camera before going on. This would break Mom’s heart, she thought, but what is, as Mom would say, is.

The varnish on the heavy oak door of the house was corrugated and cracked, chipped away in places, allowing the wood to weather to a dull gray. It wasn’t completely closed. She pressed her face to the rough wood and peered into the room beyond. Just shadowed space and what looked like a discarded jacket was all she could see. She grunted and gave the door a hearty push with her shoulder. Its reluctant hinges screeched a little as the opening widened a bit, enough to let a shaft of sunlight stream past her, highlighting in silver the tangle of cobwebs festooned across and around the single, boarded up window opposite the door. Motes of dust drifted through the sunbeam and gave it substance. Tina sniffed and clamped her hand to her nose in hopes of forestalling a sneeze.

She lunged against the door again and it swung in suddenly until it scraped against a warped floorboard and sent her staggering into the musty back entry of the farmhouse. Grasping at the insubstantial support of a spider web, she fell against the wall, one knee on the short three step stair leading to the kitchen of her grandmother’s abandoned house.

Her knee stung and beads of blood oozed through a hole in the knee of her stocking. She limped up the steps and looked around with dismay.

Several strips of wallpaper rustled around her ankles, raising goose bumps on her arms. Other strips sagged from the walls. Brown jagged stains disfigured the ceiling. Very little remained of the cheerful room this had once been. Once, ivory and rose linoleum had reflected the sunlight filtering through gauze curtains that fluttered in the breeze, bringing in the scent of mown hay and clover. But the memories couldn’t compete with the musty odor of dampness and neglect which was the reality of today. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried once more to visualize the past, but failing, opened them again to study the remains.

Cupboards had been ripped from scarred plaster. There were piles of rags in collapsing cardboard boxes stacked against one wall. Signs of rodent inhabitants were everywhere. Already her few moments of silence had produced skittering sounds of mouse activity in the walls. Maybe it was too late. Maybe this old house could no longer tell the story she wanted to hear…about her grandmother, about Aunt Dorrie, for Little Dorrie’s sake.

Fast moving shadows moved across the tattered curtain remnants. Tina walked to the windows which were nearly opaque with grime and rust from the oxidized screens and peered out. Dark clouds were rushing across the blue sky from the west.

These dirt roads can get muddy in a hurry if it rains, she thought, pushing aside the old curtains to better check out the advancing front. The rotted cloth turned to powder at her touch. She plunged her hand into the pocket of her short jacket to get a tissue, barely catching the first of a series of violent sneezes, spasms causing tears to spring to her eyes and her nose to run.

This dust, she moaned, I’ll have an asthma attack if I don’t get out of here. There’s nothing here anymore anyway. Nevertheless, she felt compelled to walk through the rooms, further down memory lane.

The dining room brought memories of the extended family gathered around the mahogany table once gracing the center of the room. She smiled at the thought of the platters of home grown vegetables and the too large portions of too large roasts and fowl which constituted the noon meal, known as dinner on the farm. But not a bit ever wasted, reappearing in stews, sandwiches, casseroles for supper plus numerous snacks.

The dining room was not in as bad a shape as the kitchen. Swags of stiff discolored green brocade hung at long windows still protected by yellowed canvas shades.

Tina clicked her high heels across the dusty floor through an arch, pausing again to survey the damage. The light was dim, shades and drapes drawn against the damaging sunlight. No one had bothered to remove everything out of the old house. A sofa sagged along one wall, its armrests still decorated with crocheted lace doilies. A long runner of intricate design lay across its lumpy back. Fluffy pieces of stuffing were scattered on the floor around the sofa, evidence of where the massive rodent population found nesting material.

A roll of carpet lay along a wall beneath the windows. The linoleum it had protected was bright and well preserved, its pattern of roses on an ivory background the reverse of the dining room. That was Aunt Dorrie alright. Her idea of perfect harmony. While this was technically Grandma’s house, it had always belonged more to Dorrie.

Tina pressed her fingertips against her eyelids and rubbed until she saw stars. It had been a long time, but not long enough. The memories rushed in, powerful and fresh as if yesterday.

Dorrie, Pristina, and her two cousins, Stephi and Sonny Forebush, had gone into town with Dorrie for an afternoon treat. They shopped an outdoor display of earrings for pierced ears under the watchful eye of a frowning old woman, who had been sitting in a metal chair reading a book until they had stopped to check her merchandise. The incessant nagging by a bored Sonny motivated them to move on toward the ice cream store.

They had barely seated themselves when their Aunt Dorrie quick stepped through the door and came to their table. She was somewhat breathless and flushed, clutching a brown envelope against her purse in a white knuckled grip. Just go to the counter and order a cone, she instructed. I want to get back home.

It never failed to astonish Tina that neither her cousin Stephi nor Sonny remembered that scene, the part about the envelope, under the intense questioning that came later. It was as clear in her mind’s eye as the day it happened. As was the other envelope she had picked up from the library floor and, seeing Grandma Clara’s name on the front, had delivered it to the old woman. It clearly had fallen out of Uncle Adam’s jacket, which had lain across the back of the desk chair.

Uncle Adam and Sonny were tending to some outdoor project. Sonny came running at the thought of a trip to town instead of the chore his dad was about to assign.

Grandma didn’t usually approve of a frivolous trip to town for an ice cream treat so close to supper, although she was more indulgent during the long summer visits that her three grandchildren spent at the farm.

But Grandma had been cranky lately. She moved stiffly and had endured several accidents. Nothing’s wrong, she insisted, I’m just not as quick as I used to be. Just old and slow. I’m planning to have our first mess of peas for supper. she told Tina, then known as Pristina. You kids won’t know what pods are ready to pick but you can join in shelling them. What’ve you got there?

Tina handed her the letter. It’s got your name on it. It was on the floor in the library. It might have fallen out of Uncle Adam’s coat. It wasn’t open so I brought it to you. Or else I would have thought it was some farm business he was doing for you.

Grandma slid her finger under the seal and pulled out a sheet of paper with bold printing. She turned pale and grabbed at the counter to steady herself. She stuffed the paper back into the envelope, folded it in half, and put it into her apron pocket.

She turned to Tina and said, Round up Stephi and Sonny. Tell them that you’re all going to town with Dorrie. She’s going to run an errand for me and you young ones can go to the ice cream parlor for a treat.

She walked to the foot of the stairs that rose up to the second floor and yelled, Dorrie! Can you come down here? I need to see you. I’m in the library. Please! Hurry up!

Later, when Dorrie had delivered them back to the farm in an extraordinary fast drive they found the Ross boys pacing the yard.

They reported that that afternoon they had found Grandma Stinson fallen in her garden. Unable to rise, she lay there until the two Ross boys drove their tractors into the yard to prepare the machines for tomorrow’s labor. The young men were helping their father farm the widow Stinson’s land on a rental basis since she wouldn’t consider selling it to the neighboring farmer.

She’s an old woman. She’ll sell up sooner or later. She can pay the taxes while we bide our time, was their father’s philosophy.

Clayton Ross had carried the old woman into the house and laid her on the sofa while Mark paced the veranda, running to meet Dorrie’s car, running alongside as she stopped and lowered the window.

Your mom’s hurt! he panted. Clayton’s put her on the sofa and called the doctor’s number that’s on the refrigerator. But Ravenhill is so far away, I called Ma too! This last was said as a cloud of dust followed a car bumping into the yard on a field road.

Inside the house, Mrs. Ross directed Clayton to carry the old woman up the stairs, Dorrie weeping and holding her hand all the way.

By the time the Doctor arrived, Dorrie and Mrs. Ross had bathed Grandma in a warm tub, liberally sprinkled with bath salts by Dorrie, dressed her in a clean nightgown and propped her up in her big four-poster bed on a pile of pillows.

The Rosses departed and the cousins sat down to a subdued supper around one end of the long table. A shriek from upstairs brought them to their feet. They made a mad dash up the stairs.

Grandma was convulsing on the bed while Dorrie had flung herself onto her, trying to hold her shoulders to stop the writhing. A bottle and a tablespoon stained with red from the liquid in the bottle was on the floor. Some of the liquid was spilling onto the floor. Grandma stopped moving, a dribble of red medicine running from the corner of her mouth.

Into the silence a man’s voice roared, What have you done, girl?

He walked to the bed and, pulling Dorrie back, felt for a pulse in Grandma’s neck. He lowered his head to her chest and listened before brushing his hand down over her eyes to close the lids. Pulling the sheet gently up to cover her face, he shook his head.

Nothing to be done. Sit down in that chair, Dorrie, and stay there. You kids get yourselves downstairs. Go to the library and stay there, too.

But Dad, protested Sonny, we didn’t get any supper. It’s on the table.

Grandma’s dead, Dummy, Stephi admonished her brother, who wants to eat?

Tina’s uncle, Adam Forebush, pulled a white handkerchief from his back pocket and stooped to slide the spoon and bottle with its remaining liquid onto it. He wrapped it securely and placed it in the drawer of the bedside table.

Get out, he ordered his son, do as you’re told!

Sonny and Stephi turned and dashed downstairs. Prissie, as she was called then, pressed her back against the hallway wall and peered into the room.

Do you think you’re gonna get away with this, Dorrie? You want Clayton Ross and Clayton wants the farm. Everyone knows what’s going on between you two, but nobody guessed you’d go this far.

She’s my Mom, Adam! I’d never hurt her! I’ve always taken care of her!

And maybe that’s become another problem for a young woman like you. He pulled Dorrie to her feet and dragged her by the arm to the stairs.

Hey, Prissie, what did I tell you? Get down in the library and stay there!

She obeyed about going downstairs, but huddled in an alcove between the library and the stairs, watching first her grandma’s covered body being carried away on a gurney, and then Aunt Dorrie pulled forward by a deputy on each side, holding her arms and urging her out the door.

Tina brushed her eyes with the back of her hand, sniffed and walked across that same alcove, hesitated, then veered off the few feet to the library door.

Stepping inside, she froze, shocked, at the sight of boards nailed across one of the windows where several panes had been broken out. Big nails bit into the oak frames, splitting the hard wood. A glass panel in the door to a veranda had been boarded up as well, but not before birds had found their way into the room and had left their calling cards everywhere. The hardwood floor was buckled and uneven.

Evidently a favorite spot to roost. The hardwood floor had warped and discolored from rain driven into the room by storms before the holes had been boarded over.

As Tina stepped into the room, the toe of her shoe kicked a small object and sent it skidding across the floor. She shrank back in surprise and disgust. It was the dried, feathered skeleton of a bird, a swallow by the color of the feathers. There were others she noticed lying under the windows against the wall. Who would do such a thing? Heartlessly boarding up the windows without regard for the fate of the birds trapped inside.

There were books on the floor too, scattered and torn, as though a madman in a towering rage had pulled them from the shelves and flung them around the room. Those that were closed had the tell tale white streaks on their covers, but those with pages exposed were clean.

She bent over the nearest pile and touched a few of the pages. Not even dusty. This all must have been done after the birds were dead and the windows boarded up. She shuddered, suddenly feeling cold. It was one thing to plot a new investigation into an old murder and quite another to find what could be supporting evidence of some evil force emanating from the past.

Another memory crept in, of her mother’s tears staining her silk blouse as she clasped Tina in her arms amidst the shocked and grim band of relatives gathering in the ivory and rose living room. How could they believe it? Whatever the circumstances? Well, she hadn’t believed it then and she didn’t believe it now.

She looked uneasily over the piles of books again, noticing that the colors inside were rich and new looking. She glanced over her shoulder. Maybe the vandals knew she was here, but I can’t run away at the first sign that there was still someone interested in the Stinson house, she thought. Mom’s worrying was catching. She had come to believe in her much younger sister’s innocence, but thought Tina’s determination to poke around wasn’t wise. Poke a hornet’s nest and you might get stung, she’d said. Nothing can be done now, anyway.

At least we’ll see if that’s true. she said aloud. An attack of nerves in an old vandalized house full of imagined ghosts isn’t going to send me running.

The roar of a distant tractor interrupted her thoughts and she stood on tiptoe to see through the remaining glass of a library window. There was only tall grass and spiny lilac bushes, still waving their purple flags in the late spring.

I’ll check the bedrooms upstairs, then I’ll be done with this house and on my way to Ravenhill, she thought with relief, anxious to be out of the house now. She hurried up the stairs into the wide hall that extended the length of the second floor. Two empty bedrooms were visible through open doors.

Grandma’s big bedroom at the front of the house brooded behind its closed door. Several footprints were scuffed into the dust on the floor. Hair rose on Tina’s arms as though she had received a charge of electricity.

Tiptoeing silently down the hall, she eased the doorknob until she could open the door a crack, enough to peek through into the room. She could see the closet door standing open, no threat there, so she swung the bedroom door wide and stepped in. Apparently she had lost her ability to be shocked for she was able to absorb the destruction of Grandma’s room with equanimity and a good deal of interest.

The big four-poster bed was still here. Its mattress had been systematically slit, again and again, the stuffing pulled out and scattered around the room. Several baseboards had been pried off and left lying around nails up like beetles overturned and helpless on their backs. Just like the library, someone had been searching for something, something important, with no attempt to cover their tracks. But why should they, she thought, who would care about an old abandoned house being vandalized?

Moving on, she discovered that neither Aunt Dorrie’s room nor the one she had shared with her cousin Stephanie had been disturbed. She sighed, ah, those summers at the farm…then caught herself short. This was no time to reminisce.

She had long-planned to find an opportunity to go to the scene of the tragedy and run through the sequence of events, refreshing her memory of everyone and everything, step by step, hoping to find some clue to begin an investigation into this very cold case.

Except for her obsession with Grandma Clara, Tina was a practical person by nature. She had planned and accomplished her major goals so far. She had a freshly minted law degree and a series of interviews set up to bring her to her former home in Denver. Just a stone’s throw from Ravenhill, as the city fathers liked to remind people. She expected a good job offer or two because of her grade average and her single minded approach to studies. She imagined her future stretching before her like a wide paved road. Not that she had no friends or had taken no interest in extracurricular activities, but clearly everyone knew that she wanted to get out of school and on with real life, as she thought of it.

She had always reserved time for Little Dorrie though. As always, the thought of her little sister brought a surge of affection. Those had been the fun times of the last few years, helping Mom by seeing to Little Dorrie nights, while Jenna worked the night shift at the hospital in order to be available during the day when Tina was in school. Since her father’s music gigs and rehearsals took place mostly in the evening, Tina was often in charge of the little girl.

Fortunately, she was able to live at home while getting her college degree. It wasn’t until Dorrie started school that Tina finally left home to attend law school. Jenna was then able to switch to a daytime nursing schedule. Dorrie was kept close to her family rather than in daycare, so she was often with her parents for the social affairs and sometimes the concerts at which her father played. At eight, Little Dorrie was a social and cheerful little girl. Little Dorrie. Tina winced at the nickname. She’d thought it was an unnecessary reminder of things past, but found herself using the term herself.

Dorrie had started asking for stories about summers on the farm. About why she couldn’t go there. About the cousins Tina knew so well and had so many adventures with. She wanted cousins to play with. She wanted a big garden to eat fresh veggies that still had dirt on them. She wanted a pony to ride. It wasn’t fair!

Stories about Stinson Farm had been a staple for entertaining the little girl through long hours of babysitting. That could have been a mistake.

The floor vibrated under her feet as a rumble like rolling thunder sounded in the distance. Tina trotted back into Grandma’s room, to the front windows, rubbing at the grime on the glass until she’d made a big enough circle to look through.

Two huge orange trucks were parked in the middle of a stubble field on the far quarter of the section, looking small in the distance. She noticed a series of circles of light colored dirt in a line across the portion of the farm visible from her eagle’s view.

An eerie sense of another’s presence swept over her and she whirled to face the doorway. A man stood there, hands on his hips, a curious tilt to his head. He was a big man, raw boned, blond. His complexion was ruddy from outdoor work. He was wearing striped bib overalls, the loops on one leg holding a hammer and pliers. A red and black flannel shirt completed the stereotypical farmer costume.

He frowned, stared at her for a long moment before letting his blue eyes roam around the room. The corners of his mouth tightened in a fleeting expression of disgust.

For a little girl, he said in a pleasant bass voice, you sure know how to trash a house.

T-trash a house! Tina sputtered, at a loss for words. You don’t believe….you can’t think... She looked helplessly around the room and then indicated her immaculate navy blue skirt and white blouse with a sweep of her fingers, before holding out her hands, displaying her clean fingers and pink polished nails glistening in the light.

Do you honestly think I did all of this and that downstairs without getting a spot of dirt anywhere?

His eyes, drawn to her body by her careless gesture, lingered then resumed his study of her face.

Growing uneasy at the scrutiny, she demanded, Who are you and what are you doing in this old house?

He surveyed the room again. I didn’t realize that things had gotten as bad as this.

If you think this is bad, she said with another sweep of her arm, you should see downstairs. She moved rapidly toward him, hoping the tactic would cause him to step aside. Come, she ordered, and skidded to a stop, pressing her hands against his chest to prevent a collision when he stood stolidly in the doorway. Recovering her balance, she ordered, Well, come on. Let’s go. I want to show you downstairs.

I’ve been downstairs. That’s how I got up here. He took her chin between thumb and forefinger and tilted her head from one side to the other. I know you, don’t I?

Tina jerked her face from his hand, defiantly, determined not to show the unease she was feeling being trapped up in this vandalized room with this...this almost stranger.

She returned his stare, concentrating on his features to avoid gazing directly into his eyes, in case he could identify a liar when he met one. He had high cheekbones, a strong chin, dented with a cleft in the center. His prominent nose was straight and flanked by vivid blue eyes. All features she remembered too well.

I’m sorry, she said, I can’t place you. You probably are mistaken.

A slow smile moved the corners of his mouth, displaying