Windfall

By Irene Hughes

A bereaved young professional woman living in Colorado inherits the substantial estate of her beloved aunt, including the large Virginia farm with a picturesque mansion where she had spent happy summers in her youth. She returns to Virginia to settle the estate and to decide whether to stay there permanently and immediately encounters a number of mysterious threatening and tragic incidents on the farm, plus a lawsuit aimed at breaking the aunt’s will. Then complicating her dealing with all the strife of a new life, she feels herself fighting an attraction to the estate’s coexecutor, her aunt’s handsome lawyer. Action culminates when she is confronted by a murderer—the person behind all the previous threats.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662421419

Book preview

1

A hint of fall pervaded the air. Clear blue sky scattered with shredded white cotton clouds backdropped jagged peaks of the Rockies to the northeast. A low-lying film of fog hung suspended just above the rock-strewn creek on the right side of the highway, and a light powdering of frost lingered on meadow grasses beyond, both soon to be burned away by the sun just minutes from showing over a ridge of golden aspen. This was the beginning of Bailey’s favorite months of the year, late September through April.

Invigorated, Bailey began belting Oh, What a Beautiful Morning from Oklahoma!. She was not halfway into the song when her cell phone rang, startling her. She glanced at her watch: seven fifty. Who can be calling me at this hour and on this phone? she muttered.

Yes, she said, more snappishly than she intended.

Hey, don’t snap at me, responded a soft voice, the kind with a hidden smile in it. Look, I know you hate early calls. But I thought this might be important. In this morning’s mail, there’s a pickup notice addressed to you. Just in case you want to stop by the post office before you come in. The caller returned, trailing off on a suggestive note. It was Mae, the receptionist at her newspaper office.

Sorry, Mae. Who from?

Doesn’t say.

Letter or package?

Doesn’t say.

Addressed to me at the newspaper?

No. General delivery.

That sounds strange. Well. Thanks, Mae, for calling. And wait. If anyone asks, I should be there, oh, let’s say, um, about eleven thirty, surely by noon.

Bailey loved driving through the Colorado countryside to villages and ranches to interview for feature and special interest pieces. Especially, she loved this area of valleys in the mountains southwest of Denver, so familiar to her for the past five years. Grassy meadows stretched long distances, bordered on both sides by ridges of aspen, pine, and rocky outcroppings and sometimes split by a cold, clear swift-flowing stream. It was not lush and productive like Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley where she had spent her youthful years, but rather, the vistas were holding another kind of beauty: that of the sparse, clean, and uncluttered line which so appealed to her.

Today’s trip was taking her to Flint Valley High School located about twelve miles west of town, where she was scheduled to interview the new drama teacher. The school, newly built to accommodate the county’s fast-growing population, was situated near the east boundary of a hundred-acre tract. Leaves on the aspen trees along a low ridge at the rear of the property had turned golden, forming a colorful backdrop to otherwise almost barren grounds. Perhaps the horticulture class would take on the project of decorating the campus with plantings, especially if there was no funding left for professional landscaping, she mused. As she walked into the building, she made a mental note to check out the tennis courts before she left.

At the main office, she introduced herself to an assistant principal, a sandy-haired bespectacled man in his mid-thirties, who had a weak face but firm handshake. Smiling pleasantly, he directed her to the drama teacher’s classroom. She had to stop along one of the many halls to ask for directions again before she finally found her destination near the very end of the sprawling building. The classroom had a small offset room, which served as the teacher’s office. Karen Stiles was sitting at her desk there, writing something on a legal pad. She was a slim woman in her late twenties or possibly already thirty. As she stood in greeting, she struck Bailey as very poised yet energetic. She smiled broadly and extended her hand. Bailey liked her manner.

"Mrs. Stiles, I’m Bailey Warren from Valley News," she announced, clasping the offered hand.

Yes, so glad to meet you. It’s good you’re a bit early. It’ll allow time for showing you our facilities after the interview. Have a seat here, if—

Facilities? Bailey interrupted, feigning being aghast.

Oh heavens, not the whole school plant, Mrs. Stiles said hastily, smiling at Bailey’s exaggerated expression. Just the auditorium—or theater, as I prefer to call it because it’s so well designed and equipped—and the adjoining rehearsal hall.

Sounds exciting, Mrs. Stiles. Considering that the old school had only a small stage at the end of the cafeteria!

Call me Karen, please.

And Bailey here. Is anyone in the auditor—uh, theater now?

No. Unless possibly a janitor. Why?

Well, I was thinking perhaps we could talk as you show me around. I’m accustomed to jotting notes as I move. And for backup, I have this, she added as she pulled a small tape recorder from her shoulder bag, where she also carried a camera.

Sure. Good idea, in fact.

The auditorium was only a short distance away along a back hall. It was a detached structure connected to the main building by a glass-enclosed breezeway. From this area, Bailey could see a large parking lot. There were no vehicles on it, so she assumed it would be reserved primarily for staged productions.

True to the drama teacher’s reference, the facility was indeed state of the art. Its standard proscenium stage with professional lighting and sound systems, plus separate male and female dressing rooms with baths, would be the envy of any theater production company. It still smelled of new wood, paint, and vinyl. Indeed, it was new. The school term had been in session only three weeks, and no events had yet been scheduled for the auditorium.

Karen Stiles conducted the tour methodically, unselfconsciously touching equipment lovingly as she talked. Bailey snapped unposed shots of her throughout the tour. For seven years after getting a master’s degree in theater arts, Karen had taught first at a high school and then a college in Nebraska. During summer vacations, she had directed plays for community theaters in several Western states. Theater, she said, was her whole identity. She had moved to Colorado just the past summer to accept this position as drama teacher as well as the position of artistic director for a community theater in an adjoining county. Her husband was an architect with a firm in Denver. She offered the information matter-of-factly, no posturing.

What productions are you scheduling for this school year? Bailey asked when they had completed the tour and sat down at a small table backstage. She already had several pages of notes.

Two one-act plays, high school appropriate; two three-acts; and one popular musical, which I’ll coproduce with the choral and band directors—all for audiences. Then in class workshop sessions, we’ll do scenes from various plays as well as some improv. Throughout the year, of course.

Sounds ambitious. Have you selected the scripts?

Shaking her head very slightly, Karen responded, Not finalized. I’ve read bunches of plays and now narrowed the possibilities to two in each category. When will your article run?

Not positive, but I’m shooting for Sunday. More circulation on Sundays, you know. Let’s see, today is Wednesday. Thursday, I’ll be in court. So Friday, I’ll write it.

I’m not sure I can have the answer for you by Friday.

No problem. We can include your selections and your performance schedule in a follow-up article just prior to the first production. This time, the emphasis will be on this fabulous facility and you.

Fine. Great. Then glancing at her watch, she asked, Anything else I can add?

No, don’t think so. At least, not now. If I have questions as I get into the writing, will it be all right to phone you here?

Of course. Here or at home. She gave her home number. I really do appreciate your wanting to give us this coverage.

They walked back to the teacher’s room, chatting generally.

It was a few minutes before ten o’clock when they shook hands and said goodbye, Karen needing to prepare to meet her first class at ten. Walking to the visitors’ parking area, Bailey reflected on the meeting and the interview. Solid, she thought. No ball of fluff, this Karen Stiles. Instinctively, she began to mentally organize the material and write the story’s lead.

Bailey was having coffee and a pastry at a fast-food restaurant on the outskirts of town when she remembered Mae’s phone call. She finished eating but skipped asking for her third cup of coffee. At the post office fifteen minutes later, she went to the counter and waited for service. She could see two clerks. One, a short black-haired woman, was selling stamps to a young woman whose three-year-old son was holding onto her skirt; the other was a slender, balding man who was weighing a half dozen or so parcels of varying sizes taken from a large satchel.

May I help you? the woman clerk was asking her. Ma’am? she repeated to get Bailey’s attention. So preoccupied Bailey had been in her observation of the weighing procedure that she hadn’t noticed the young mother and her child leaving.

Smiling through her embarrassment, she answered, Yes, please. You have a pickup for me, Bailey Warren. General delivery.

Package?

I don’t know.

Your slip?

It’s at my office. I got a call about it.

Just a minute. The clerk walked around a corner and out of sight. Immediately, an older woman returned with her and approached Bailey. She was tall and gray-haired, clearly the person in charge.

You’re Bailey Warren?

Yes.

Where do you work? Bailey looked at her quizzically. Just for identification, the woman added.

"Valley News."

Yes, Ms. Warren. There’s a certified letter for you, addressed here, general delivery, return receipt requested. I’ve seen your name in the paper, read some of your stories. That’s why I sent the pickup notice there. I couldn’t locate a residential address for you here.

No. I live in the country—rural delivery from Deer Creek. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness in notifying me. And for reading my stuff, Bailey added, self-mockingly.

You’re entirely welcome. Here it is. Just sign on this part. She pointed and afterward, tore it off to return.

Bailey looked at the logo on the upper-left corner of the envelope as she walked out of the post office. An attorney in Lexington, Virginia. Back in her Grand Cherokee, she hastily ripped open the envelope and read the short letter.

Dear Ms. Warren:

I’m writing to you in this manner because I have so far been unable to locate an address for you other than this town where I’ve been told you work. Please phone me immediately. There is urgent business which we need to discuss.

It was signed Jeffrey L. Berner, Attorney-at-Law.

She turned it over. Nothing. That was it. Not a single detail. A lawyer in Lexington? What urgent business can it be? she asked aloud, feeling some apprehension already.

She decided against using her cell phone to call the number on the letterhead, not confident she would get good reception, and instead went on to her office. The drive proved more than a little unnerving. Once, she drove right through a stop sign and afterward, saw herself visibly shaking when realizing what she had done and what could have resulted. Then approaching her office building’s parking lot located on the right side of the street, she swerved from the inside lane to the outside one without signaling or looking and was rebuked by a blast of horn from behind that almost caused her to lose control. Parked in the lot finally, she just sat behind the wheel for a few minutes to compose herself.

2

On the second ring, a female answered; the voice soft and mellifluous, but the accent not distinctly Southern.

Mr. Berner has just returned to court for the afternoon session, she said in response to Bailey’s request to speak to the attorney. If you’ll leave your name and number, he will return your call around five.

Well, yes, thank you, but I may be out of my office then. Perhaps I can call him back tomorrow. What would be a good time?

Anytime, I would think. He’s scheduled to be here all day. May I tell him who called?

Yes, of course. Bailey Warren.

Bailey heard the woman’s distinct gasp. Ms. Warren? Ms. Warren in Colorado?

Yes.

Oh, Ms. Warren! Mr. Berner left a message here in case you called when he wasn’t in. He said for me to give you his home number and to please ask you for phone numbers where he can reach you. He said it was very important.

Do you know why he needs to contact me?

I’m not really sure.

Or aren’t at liberty to say, Bailey thought.

Bailey gave her office, home, and cell numbers then wrote the lawyer’s home number on his letter and in her pocket directory.

Bailey ordered a light lunch in and during the next several hours, busied herself with everything she could find to do. She proofread the galleys for a story she had written on the town council’s proposal for an upgraded sewage system, did phone duty while Mae was gone for lunch, phoned the county sheriff’s office and the town police department to check their blotters for logged entries over the past twenty-four hours, looked over some wire service stories that her editor had dropped on her desk for her to review for possible local interest, and handled a few calls, mainly from organization representatives requesting coverage for some upcoming event or other. All the time, a sense of apprehension nagged her, growing by the hour.

At ten after three Colorado time, Mae buzzed her.

A Mr. Berner from Lexington, Virginia, on line two for you.

She had barely gotten out a hello before he exclaimed, Thank god, I’ve finally found you! She felt her chest tighten.

Why? What is it? She wondered if she had actually shrieked the words.

Oh, I’m sorry, Ms. Warren. I didn’t mean to alarm you. It’s just that I’m so relieved. Look, is this a good time for you? I realize you’re at work—

Mr. Berner, what is it? She interrupted to demand.

Ms. Warren, I’m the attorney for your deceased aunt’s estate, Mrs. Brenden Staley—

Aunt Bren? She’s dead?

You mean you were not notified?

She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t.

Damn! Of all the—I’m sorry, Ms. Warren. I know your family can be difficult, but I thought common decency would have required that they communicate a relative’s death.

Aunt Bren. The warm, witty, and life-loving woman who had believed in her and supported her and loved her. The only bright light in a dreary family. The only relative she had loved. Bren, gone. At sixty-four.

What happened? she managed to ask after what seemed a long silence, her voice breaking.

A heart attack. She had experienced a mild one last fall—I assume you know—but with medication, diet, and exercise, appeared to be getting along rather well. Then nine days ago at a meeting here in town, she had a major attack and died in the rescue unit en route to the hospital. Shortly after the first attack, she engaged my services to draw up a new will. That’s what I’ve been trying to contact you about. Ms. Warren, are you all right? Should I go on now or call back?

Yes. Yes, go ahead. She had not known about a first heart attack.

In this will, other than several special bequests, she named you as the sole beneficiary of the bulk of her estate. Further, she designated you and me as coexecutors. And, Ms. Warren, we have problems, he added, trailing off.

Problems? she repeated like a child, not comprehending. Her mind was not functioning; these two pieces of information delivered over the phone by a stranger had left her feeling disconnected from herself.

Yes, I’m afraid so. There’s a development company submitting that it has an option on some of your aunt’s land. And your brothers are making some noises about suing to break the will. I had to threaten them with a restraining order against their entering your aunt’s property when they attempted to go through her effects. You need to get here right away so that we can sort out the situation, do an inventory—

Go to Virginia? She interrupted. For how long?

Well, indefinitely, I would think.

That would mean making extensive arrangements here, trying to arrange a leave of absence from my job, and—

Ms. Warren, I said, ‘indefinitely.’ I’m suggesting that it may be necessary to terminate your employment there, to return home.

Mr. Berner, I live in Colorado. This is home. Besides, even if I wanted to move there, I don’t imagine that the remainder of my aunt’s estate would be substantial enough to cover my moving and getting reestablished in a comparable career. Can’t we handle disposition by mail and fax, with you handling things at that end?

Ms. Warren, your aunt’s estate is quite substantial. I expect more than substantial enough for you to never work again if you were to so choose. Besides, it was her expressed wish that you accept it.

His last statement demanded an inquiry regarding its implication. But it didn’t register with Bailey on a conscious level. It was to remain lodged in her subconsciousness for some time.

Bailey shook her head, realizing the need to focus. What did register was what sounded like exasperation in the lawyer’s voice.

Mr. Berner, she said in what she hoped was a level tone, I’m not trying to be obstinate, certainly not ungrateful. Very simply, I’m upset as well as baffled by your news. I need time to absorb it and to sort out my own situation. Can I have that, please, and then call you back?

Yes, of course. Certainly. Only, Ms. Warren, don’t take long. Call soon. All right?

Yes, I promise.

Bailey hung up the phone, now a heavy weight in her hand. Papers on her desk, items she had worked on just a short while before, slipped and intermingled into a mess as her elbows dropped onto them. She cupped her hands to her forehead. Ten feet away, a reporter’s phone rang, and he answered it. Buzz, the office gopher, yelled across the room asking if there was anything ready to go to the press room; two ladybugs crawled on the shade of her desk lamp. She saw and heard all this and more; none of it registered. She was outside herself, at another place and time. Only when her own phone buzzed near her head did she snap to her surroundings.

Yes, hello, she mumbled.

It’s just me. Mae. Is anything wrong, Bailey? The call from Virginia, I mean—

No. Yes. My aunt died.

Oh, dear, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?

No. But thank you. I’m all right. Don’t put any more calls through to me, though, Mae. I’m calling it a day—going home now. See you tomorrow. Talk to you then, too, okay?

Home.

Bailey drove home in an afternoon that turned to gray sky and impending rain. The abrupt shift in weather since morning paralleled the shift in her mood. In seven short hours, she had gone from operating objectively at the center of the life she had chosen for herself ten years before, to thrashing about in the murkiness of the unresolved family conflicts and pain of her youth.

Now, her home in Colorado was a log and stone house on twenty-five acres. She had bought it five years before from a contractor who had built it as a vacation property for his family. His wife had divorced him just as he completed construction, and the divorce settlement had forced sale of the property. He nor any of his family ever lived in it. For Bailey, it was perfect. A low forested ridge perhaps a quarter mile from the front boundary obscured the house from the county secondary road. The remainder of the acreage was devoted to pastureland and hay meadow. There was a small barn-stable that she had built for her two horses. At the back of the property was a wide, swift stream with a dammed pool.

The house consisted of a great room, which stretched across the entire front of the structure and featured a large rock fireplace; a country-style paneled and beamed kitchen-den combination with fireplace; a mud and utility room; three bedrooms (one of which she had converted to an office); and two bathrooms. It was a comfortable place for entertaining, and frequently she invited friends and colleagues out for drinks or dinner, to swim or fish, and to share her love for the scenic, peaceful setting and the cozy warmth of the house.

This would definitely not be an evening for entertaining. Instead, it would be a wrenching time of analyzing the circumstances of her life and deciding a course of action. She parked the Jeep as usual in the side driveway near the mudroom entrance then checked on her horses and fed them before entering the house. Once inside, she dropped her shoulder carryall on a kitchen chair and checked the woodbox beside the fireplace. It was empty. Immediately, she went to the great room, where she knew there was wood, and laid a fire to offset the early fall chill brought on by the rain. Satisfied that the blaze would draw, she went back to the den and fixed a drink at the bar then returned to the great room where she dropped into her favorite wing chair near the fire and rested her feet on a matching hassock.

3

Nearly ten years earlier, Bailey had moved to Colorado to start a new life and a new existence following the breakup of her brief engagement. Start a second new life, actually. After high school, she had left home in a rural area near Woodstock, Virginia, to attend college in Blacksburg and, thus, separate herself as far as possible from her dysfunctional family. She had widened the separation even more after college graduation when she got a job as assistant administrator of a county in the far western part of the state. Six months later, she was engaged, and in another few months, she was experiencing serious problems.

Carl Denton was, by anyone’s measure, a decent, attractive, and intelligent young man. If he had a fault, it was probably only that he allowed his mother to have too much control in his life. He was an only child of upper-middle-class parents, whose families had been established in business in the county for three generations. After graduate school, he had returned to the hometown to join his uncle’s insurance agency, which he stood to inherit eventually. Two years later, he met Bailey; he was twenty-five, and she, twenty-two.

They met at the county administrator’s office when he went there to submit a presentation of his company’s bid for coverage of county real estate and vehicles. He invited her to lunch after the meeting, and over salad and pizza, they talked and laughed and felt enough attraction to each other to set up a date the Saturday following for dinner and dancing at the country club. They dated steadily for the next four months, doing very often those same kinds of things: cocktails, dinner and dancing at the club, dinner or picnics at his parents’ home, and movies or concerts. After the engagement, the pattern soon changed. He spent more of his leisure time with former college friends or current business contacts playing golf or attending college and professional sports events. In turn, she found herself with friends riding horseback, playing tennis, or trout fishing when weather permitted outdoor activities; when not, attending college and community theater productions and reading or writing for indoor indulgencies.

The problem was not that they argued or even criticized each other in any way; it was that they drifted into a state of casualness. They kept appointments and fulfilled social obligations together, but soon, there was none of the lighthearted enjoyment of simply being together like at the beginning. There never had been a real sense of passion, she was to realize later. Not wanting to admit failure, Bailey decided to seek some counseling in order to try to re-invigorate the relationship. Precisely at that moment, his mother injected herself and began planning a social life for Bailey. Two days before the scheduled first appointment with a counselor, her future mother-in-law dropped in to announce that she had arranged for Bailey to be accepted as a member of the Junior Women’s League and the country club board. And if Bailey’s background checked out, she might submit her application for admission to the DAR. Contemplation of spending her future years in an unfulfilling marriage rooted in a cloistered and pretentious lifestyle led Bailey to tell Carl, when he called that very evening, that she wanted to end the engagement.

Carl didn’t object. He realized, too, that they had little prospect of making a marriage work. Mainly, he felt that Bailey had always kept a barrier and a shield between them; certainly, she had seemed sexually inhibited. Indeed, it seemed to him that, basically, all they had in common was their business administration degrees. Bailey figured the same. However, she had tried harder to make it work; she knew that she had hoped in marriage to establish a home and a family to fill a void in her life. A void Carl had no way