The Mystery of the Lady of the Manor

By Erin Kaine

SECRETS AND DECEPTION: When a beautiful and elegant heiress, Miss Claire Pynchon, arrived in town to be the fourth Lady of the Manor at Scanlon Hall, she was an instant celebrity occupying the regal mansion and grounds of the historic estate after a two-decade absence of the founding family. Her presence brought about an excitement and promise of an imminent restoration of a Golden Age of the Scanlon Manor. Author Erin Kaine uses the entertaining voice of a 38-year-old widowed small-town police chief, a former scholar-athlete, harried father of a 16-year-old daughter, and a sophisticated but underachieving native son, to chronicle the startling events and terrible revelations in that summer when the Scanlons came back to Forest Grove. The whole town fell under Claire’s mesmerizing spell including Chief Tom Callahan whose quiet small town cop life gets shaken up by the reopening of a 20-year-old murder case that was called a suicide by his own father and predecessor as chief of police. He faced personal revelations and shameful cover-up where officials and even friends were trapped in its fog of deceit. But the biggest mystery of all that summer was the suspicion that the enchanting and charming Miss Claire appeared not to be who she represented herself to be. The veteran cop faced an agonizing decision to unmask her true identity – the woman with whom he was having a not-so-secret affair and with whom he had fallen passionately in love. A great read!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janus Expressions
• Release date: Oct 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781497798618

Book preview

1

SCANLON HALL stood high on the hill overlooking our town like a gilded monarch, regal, benevolent and constant. Four generations of Scanlons have lived there in good times and bad.

Each new generation of townspeople built its own mythology around it and its then current residents. At times the house seemed a distant specter removed from the mere mortal life of the town. The mansion, itself, at times seemed almost ominous as when Pacific rainstorms brought a rapidly changing light and made its face seem foreboding, then at other times, as on sunny days, it showed a benign and shining face looking down lovingly upon the tiny community of Forest Grove, my town – a place that seemed so idyllic to me when growing up.

It is the town that ultimately revealed its dark side of murder and betrayal, and startling secrets that came to light after the Scanlons returned to Forest Grove that summer.

I say it is my town because I am the local police chief. Before you get all impressed by my rank and status, Forest Grove is to Mayberry as Sheriff Andy Taylor is to me. We have a two-man force – make that a one man and one woman force – because Midge Collins is my deputy. It is a real question as to who is the real chief since Midge has the seniority. She was my dad’s deputy and then was interim chief for more than two years herself before she talked the town council into hiring me for my dad’s old job. That made me the third generation of Callahans to serve as the town constable as some of the old-timers called us. My grandfather was a real constable and the first hired lawman in Forest Grove.

Midge was the one who babysat me when I was sick and rode herd on me after school, helped me with my homework and went to my ball games after my mom walked out on my father and me when I was seven years old, never to be seen again. Midge and "her lady friend,’ a principal in a nearby elementary school district, spoiled me rotten on every possible occasion.

The Callahans of Forest Grove went almost as far back as the Scanlons, the founders of the town. P.J. Scanlon was the patriarch who built the three-story mansion in the style of an early 19th Century English manor house on grounds that boasted broad expanses of lawn, groves and small ponds, carefully planned gardens arranged around fountains and a small lake that brought out the Tom Sawyer in me as a callow youth. I spent many a summer day with a fishing rod in hand trying to catch its stocked largemouth black bass. That was forbidden, of course by town ordinance, but since my dad was also the official game warden for Forest Grove, everyone looked the other way when my friend, Slater, and I made our way up the trail in the woods for a day of fishing.

Patrick James (P.J.) Scanlon was by reputation a lovable but weird old coot, a penurious Irisher, who made his money as a ten-percenter – the green eyeshade accountant for the Silver Kings of the Comstock Lode – John Mackey, James Fair, James Flood and William O’Brien, all refugees from the Irish Potato Famine who profited handsomely from mining claims when tons of silver ore were extracted from the earth in places like Virginia City, Nevada. They had come West with the Gold Rush and eventually merged their engineering and financial investment skills into a massive fortune from mining, finance and railroading. Scanlon was a shrewd Bob Cratchett-like bookkeeper to the gregarious Irish foursome that were hardly Scrooge-like. His own profits came on the coattails of the more famous four resulting in a much smaller fortune, but still very substantial indeed. Hence, the Scanlon estate that rivalled Mr. Darcy’s Pemberly was legendary and a living legacy of another era.

So while the Scanlons and the Scanlon Investment Company pretty much held actual title to Forest Grove, it was my town, my bailiwick that I strode through daily talking to the merchants and the citizens like it was my very own. The Scanlons had moved east nearly 20 years earlier after a tragic event resulted in the death of the youngest boy, who was three years younger than me. He had had committed suicide under mysterious circumstances when I was still in high school. The house on the hill remained empty of family all those years except for a caretaking couple who kept up the interior of the residence and a grounds manager who kept the outside attended to year-round. When the family left, the widowed Jane Scanlon, the third generation of mistresses of the manor, took her two remaining children back to her family in the exclusive environs of the Hamptons on New York’s Long Island. Elizabeth, the eldest was three years older than me and known to be in ill health. I only knew her slightly. She was a taller, angular red-headed girl, very pale and sickly. I heard later that she had died of leukemia.

The middle child was Gray Scanlon, Gray being Jane’s birth family surname. He was a year behind me but was a teammate on both the football and basketball teams in school. He was an exceptional athlete but never looked the part. He was probably 5’7, very slender and he had very light brown hair and fair skin much like his younger brother. But he was the fastest runner and most natural high school athlete I ever saw despite his size. In basketball, he would now be called a point guard and in football a scat back. I was Big Tom" and I played center on both the basketball and football teams with Gray. His running talents took us to the state football championship game in our division – which we lost. We lost because Gray broke his leg in the semi-final game. Without him, we were just another team with a good offensive line but nobody to open the holes for. We sucked at the passing game.

The family moved not all that long after football season ended, a few months after young Willie died. I remember Gray was just out of his cast. I had few memories of Willie. He was a freshman when I was a senior but he was a pretty young man, pretty in the sense of a flawless face and complexion. He had an effeminate manner but was known to have a rich sense of humor. His classmates liked him for his offbeat humor. He would often get up in front of a class and give dramatic readings of poetry or comic prose. Or impromptu Gilbert and Sullivan riffs.

The family’s departure was met with a measured and respectful silence by the community in light of events. It was an uneasy departure. I heard years later that Gray was in a speed boat accident and was hospitalized for a long time. Rumor was he had succumbed to injuries he had received. But no one really knew for sure since the lines of communication decayed despite the family maintaining substantial real estate and business interests in town.

Hey, Tom! The voice of Matt Tedford brought me up short just after crossing through the central town square park, one of my favorite places, as I was heading towards the station which was actually a two-room storefront that served as police headquarters.

Hey, Matt. He was smiling like the cat that ate the canary when he approached and shook my hand. That look meant Matt had some big announcement. Besides being the town’s independent hardware store owner, Matt was also its prime gossip monger outside of Sylvia’s Curl Up and Dye beauty shop clientele.

Have you heard the news? he asked. My crinkling forehead was all the clue he needed to know he would take my virginity on whatever the subject was. They are coming back! He smiled self-satisfied knowing I would have to actually ask him for more clarification and information.

"They would be ...?" I let my voice trail off.

The Scanlons!! His chest almost puffed up like a Robin in mating season. He studied my face for a reaction. I gave him stunned silence and a curious look betraying my lack of ready reaction.

Well, not the Scanlons we knew exactly, he added. An heir we are told. Betty Cook from the real estate office told us at the Chamber of Commerce board meeting this morning. She was contacted by the new owner of the Scanlon mansion and estate, a cousin she was told. Jane died a while back and all her children had passed so the heir is a niece, the daughter of her sister. She is apparently the only remaining heir and living relative to Jane. She lost all her children, you know.

Yes, I did know. But I am afraid I did not share Matt’s heightened state of excitement by the news so I didn’t really know what to say, except, That’s interesting.

Matt unloaded with all he knew about it the situation, which wasn’t all that much. This woman was to arrive sometime that week and would be taking up residence at the mansion with her young female companion and assistant. She was apparently single. Her age was undetermined but was likely a contemporary of the Scanlon children. She had been in touch with the household staff and head groundskeeper and they were told they were to stay on. She had also told Betty she hoped to become a contributing member of the community of Forest Grove since the family interests ran deep in the town and hoped to be supportive of her new community.

That’s it? I asked when he finished. Matt nodded still proud of his being the bearer of such monumental news. He stood in wide-eyed pride and just looked at me with a self-satisfied grin.

Finally I broke the silence. You didn’t happen to get a name, did you?

If I had run him over with a steamroller I could not have crushed him more deeply. He had forgotten the most important thing of all, the mortal sin of a truly gifted gossip. The name of the gossipee!

He tried to recover his dignity but stumbled over his words. P-P-Pynchon, he stuttered in reply. P-Y-N-C-H-O-N spelling it out. The C-H-O-N I am told is pronounced like S-H-O-N and the accent is on the last syllable.

More than I wanted to know but it helped Matt recover his dignity, a bit.

Until I asked, First name?

He actually hung his head when he was forced to say, Claire, Betty said. Claire Pynchon. I almost felt like patting his shoulder with a there, there but didn’t.

I decided to give him a cheery thank you that I didn’t feel about getting the news from him which helped him I am sure. Matt is the guy that knows whose pipes are stopped up and whose got rodent or electrical problems so Claire Pynchon news was definitely a cut above. After a little small talk we parted company. Seconds later I heard him hail another townie with, Have you heard the news? I hoped for Matt’s sake, he hadn’t. I am just an old softie.

2

THOREAU HAD HIS CONCORD, wherein he said he traveled much, but Forest Grove was my Concord and Scanlon Lake my Walden Pond. Growing up everyone had high expectations for me. I was my school’s philosopher-king, a glib and probably annoying scholar-athlete –a guy who was undoubtedly talking when I should have been listening. I was a bit full of myself at times.

My childhood pal was Greg Slater. He was my Sancho Panza, but not above piercing the balloon of my ego on occasion and was thoroughly unimpressed with my overblown pronouncements on life. I was Tom Sawyer glibly convincing others to whitewash Aunt Polly’s fence, but he was Huck, rough around the edges but not fooled by my game. And wicked smart at that. We were tight as kids, but we drifted apart after high school and I never knew exactly why.

Greg’s mom had a major influence on my life. She was the town librarian. The library was the central building on the square. It was the first building P.J. Scanlon commissioned when he laid out the grid for the future township of Forest Grove. It was red brick with ivy-covered walls, three stories with the traditional carved lions guarding the entrance. The interior was resplendent with high quality oak floors and hardwood stacks and long broad tables with bankers’ lamps. It smelled of furniture polish and wax on the floors – and books, the fresh clean smell of leather and parchment.

From junior high on, I spent many hours at the library after school when there were no team practices or had a lot of free time during summers and holidays. I varied my times reading there with basketball at the park outdoor courts or fishing at the lake. Mrs. Slater kind of took me under her wing and subtly fed me a selection of reading that changed my life. You should read this, she would say as she placed a volume like Candide or Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground or Jack Kerouac or Jane Austen or Mark Twain or Henry Miller or Camus or Oscar Wilde – you name it.

Because of her, a regular contingent of my schoolmates hung around the library reading in quiet corners or attending a presentation. Mrs. Slater started a variety of book clubs for all age groups and interests and in her own way encouraged a greater depth of education than the classrooms of junior and senior high school which really was one socially stratified zoo looking back on it.

Mrs. Slater was nearing retirement when the Claire Pynchon news broke and, when I made my usual once a week drop in at the library, she was even excited by the news. I have been corresponding with Miss Pynchon by e-mail, she told me. What a lovely young woman she must be, she added. She tells me that she in very interested in giving greater support to the library operations budget and book purchasing endowment and even wants to expand staff and bring the library fixtures up to date.

While it struck me as odd that the Scanlon heir would target the library for her largesse from 3,000 miles away, the joy in Mrs. Slater’s telling me of her interest brought a smile to my face.

She tells me that libraries are very close to her heart and she values them highly as being such a vital part of any community. What an angel! Put down one conquest for the new Miss Scanlon-Pynchon, I thought.

Mrs. Slater not only guided me early on after