Chime and Punishment Page 4

  “Ruth, come meet Janet Paisley.”

  “I’d love to,” I said.

  I waited until the other woman got out of the car and walked around toward me. It gave me a moment to take her in. I could see where Jeff got his height. Janet was as tall as I was. Her short hair was natural, with flecks of gray weaving through her tight curls. Whereas her son was slow to smile, Janet’s face broke into a wide grin as she walked toward me with both her hands outstretched. I took both her brown hands in mine and squeezed them.

  “Ruth, how wonderful to meet you!”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Paisley,” I said, and couldn’t help but return her smile.

  “Mrs. Paisley. Bah. Mrs. Paisley was my mother-in-law, a formidable woman who scared me to death. I’m Janet.”

  “Janet, welcome to Orchard.”

  “Thank you. When Jeff told me about this Signing Ceremony, I thought, When better to go and visit his new home?”

  “Are you alone?” I asked. I knew that Jeff’s father had passed, but he had two sisters, and they both had families.

  “Janet is on a reconnaissance mission,” Nancy said. “She’s here to check us all out, especially Moira, and report back.”

  Janet laughed. “All wonderful things to report. Orchard is a lovely town.”

  “Wait until you meet Kim Gray,” Nancy said.

  “Between you and Jeff, I’m prepared to meet the Princess of Darkness.” Both women howled at the inside joke.

  “Well, even though we could sit and talk for hours, we have work to do,” Nancy said. “We’ve got food to prepare.”

  “Freddie’s working on it,” I said.

  Nancy sighed. “Of course she is. But I’ll have to finish it, unless she’s had a personality transplant. No worries. Janet said she’d help.”

  “Putting our guest to work, I see,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Janet said. “Now, let’s get these supplies unloaded, and then you can show me the kitchen.”

  I offered to help, but both women waved me off. “You know what you could do? Move Janet’s car out back in the alley?”

  “Afraid Beckett will make Jeff give his own mother a parking ticket?” I said, taking the keys from Janet.

  “Well, I’m never going to tell him this, but today he has a point. Better to leave the parking spaces for the visitors. Of which there will be many, so get back to your shop. This is your show.”

  “No pressure,” I said as I felt the nervousness I had been ignoring all morning creep up behind me.

  “Lots of pressure, for all of us. But we’ve got this,” Nancy said, leaning in to give me a one-armed squeeze. I watched as the two women walked into the Sleeping Latte, chatting as if they’d known each other for years.

  • • •

  Getting into the car brought back a flood of memories. The squat and scoop was very different than me getting into my Scion xB, which was more of a slight bend of the knee to slide in. Much as I loved my green car, driving the Mini was fun. Nancy was smart to ask me, since getting to the access road behind the stores was a little challenging, and we’d need to park this car out of the way. Since it was so small, it fit between my store and the barbershop. The door didn’t have a lot of clearance, but I was able to shimmy my way out of the driver’s side.

  As soon as I stepped into the alley, the jingling collar of Ben’s dog, Blue, let me know he was close by. I turned and saw both of my guys standing back by the Dumpster behind the barbershop. Ben was holding Blue’s collar, and I prepared myself for the full assault of the Australian shepherd. Blue launched himself at me the instant he was free, snuffling and wagging frantically as he wound himself around my legs. I stopped it the only way I could, by squatting down and putting my arms around the dog, nuzzling his neck and showering the top of his head with kisses. He dropped the ball he was carrying and returned a few of my kisses by licking my jaw.

  “Hey, save some of that for me,” Ben said, appearing next to me. He put his hand out and pulled me up into his open arms. His kiss was deep, and my knees were weak. I pulled back first, staying in his arms but looking into his blue eyes.

  “It’s good to see you,” I said.

  “Just good?” Ben said.

  “Really good,” I said, kissing him. “How was your trip?”

  I was immediately sorry I asked. Ben’s grip loosened and he stepped back, looking down at Blue and patting him absentmindedly.

  “Complicated.”

  “I’m a good listener,” I said.

  “I know you are, babe,” he said. “It’s a long story, and I’d like to tell it to you. Maybe later tonight?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, letting my breath out. “Do you need to work in the Emporium today?”

  Ben smiled and looked relieved that the subject was changed. “Jason’s on it.”

  “He’s a big help,” I said.

  Ben looked over his shoulder toward the shop and then back at me. “He is. Honestly, we couldn’t run the store without him. But he’s way overqualified to be stocking shelves. We’re going to lose him as soon as he gets his Massachusetts licensing straightened out and he can get a full-time job as a pharmacist. Better him than me though—my patience for worrying about the number of antacids to order is limited.”

  “Well, it is nice for folks to have someone around who can answer questions.”

  Ben picked up a tennis ball Blue had abandoned and pitched it into the woods. We both watched Blue run into the underbrush, his fluffy bottom wiggling with pure joy.

  “Yeah, it is. He’s knowledgeable about homeopathic medicine as well. The new service we’re offering, where he brings folks prescriptions back from Marytown? It is going well, though not a ton of folks are taking advantage of it yet.”

  “Well, I know that Caroline and Zane are both grateful. Saves them the trip. Are you glad you hired him?”

  “Sure, of course. We aren’t ever going to be best friends, but he fits right into Orchard.” Blue came running back with the ball.

  “He’s a font of information, that’s for sure,” I said.

  “Information, that’s a nice way of saying it. More like gossip.” Ben wrestled the ball from Blue and threw it again.

  “I did notice that he and Nancy are spending time together,” I said, smiling. “Did you know Jeff’s mother is in town?” I gestured to the Mini.

  “Is that her car? Where is she?”

  “She and Nancy are at the Sleeping Latte, cooking for this afternoon.”

  “So they are getting along well?”

  “Seems so. Is the car all right parked here? I want to leave room in the back for Pat and Zane to both park.”

  “Yeah, it should be fine. I like the color. What would you call it?”

  “Absolute Black Metallic. As opposed to Midnight Black Metallic.”

  “How do you know that so specifically?”

  “My ex drove a Mini. He suffered over color choices for a week. As did I, since he was never one to suffer in silence.” I looked down at my feet.

  “Huh. You know, that’s the most personal detail about him you’ve ever told me.”

  “Is it? Really? Ah, well, we can add that to the later discussion.”

  Ben smiled and drew me close again, running his finger down the side of my face. “Sounds like a plan. Speaking of which, are we meeting at the Cog, or at the Town Hall?”

  “Why don’t you come over to the Cog? I’m sure I’ll have a ton of stuff to bring over. I’ve got to check in with Zane.”

  “Is he bringing the figures with him?”

  We’d decided to recreate the dancing figures from the original clock tower, and Zane had taken on the project with gusto. In addition to mad clock making skills, Zane was an artist and had built most of his clock cases himself. I’d agreed, though the cos
t of creating the figures had added more to the budget. In order to pay for this aspect of the project, we’d auctioned off the final figure online, which would be carved to the specifications of the winner of the auction. It was another Nadia idea that was much more successful than I ever could have imagined, raising $25,000.

  I still couldn’t believe it. Twenty-five thousand dollars. Nadia’s social media efforts helped and were picked up by several media outlets. The Berkshires had their share of well-heeled summer residents, and more than a few apparently liked the idea of having their face carved into a figurine on Orchard’s clock tower. The last couple of hours of the auction had been wild, with the dollar amount going higher and higher until the last-minute winner came in. Once the bidding was over we got to see the name of the winner.

  Beckett Green.

  Those two words had taken the wind out of our happy balloon. I’d never forget Nancy’s reaction to the news.

  “I have to see Beckett Green dancing outside the clock tower every hour?” Nancy had said, her tone matching all of our moods. “Less than thrilled” was a polite way of putting it.

  “He won’t be dancing,” I said. “More like coming out of the door underneath the clock and spinning around a few times.”

  “I have to see Beckett Green spinning outside the clock tower every hour?” she asked.

  “Now, Nancy, Beckett’s already invested a lot into this project,” Pat said. “He gave us the grant match in December—”

  “So we wouldn’t run him out of town on a rail,” Nancy said, obviously flustered.

  “You’re the one who got him to ante up,” Pat said.

  “True. I was hoping he’d learned his lesson, but he’s still a royal pain.”

  “He is that,” Pat agreed.

  “Well, I guess the best we can hope for is Zane’s creative license with the carving,” I said. “Maybe he’ll make him look not so Beckett-like.” Not that Beckett was an ugly man, by any means. It’s just that once you knew him, his personality made you wince every time you saw his face. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of seeing my dream project include a spinning Beckett, but a girl had to do what a girl had to do. The Clagan Clock Tower project needed an infusion of cash.

  “Ruth, come back to me,” Ben said, gently snapping me out of our memories. He was smiling at me, having gotten used to my zoning out. It was to his credit that he’d never taken it personally. “What are you thinking about?”

  “I’m thinking about what I’ve done to get this project funded so far. And what I still have to do.” I frowned slightly.

  “It will be all worth it,” Ben said, smiling encouragingly and taking my hand. “When do we get to see these figures anyway? What did he finally decide to do? Last I heard he was painting them. I can’t wait to see what they are going to look like.”

  “Me either. He is bringing a model of the one of my grandmother Mae. The actual figures are going to be at least six feet tall. Zane wants to keep the final product secret as long as we like the direction he is going in. He hasn’t even begun carving Beckett yet. He’s still a block of wood.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Ben said.

  Blue trotted toward us from the brush, ball triumphantly clamped in his jaws.

  “Be nice. I’m going in. We had so much to do to get ready for today, we moved winding day to today. Pat and I have work to do.” I gave Ben a quick kiss and turned to walk up the back stairs to the shop. I turned around, and Ben was still watching me. He smiled when he saw me, but I’d caught his expression right before. He’d looked a million miles away, with a peck of trouble weighing him down.

  chapter 5

  Walking into the Cog & Sprocket never got old for me. The workroom was very much like the shop my grandfather left me. Almost identical, but with two more workstations and a lot more clocks in process. Caroline had hung out her shingle again and was processing basic repairs. I was overseeing larger restoration work, along with Zane Phillips.

  Zane Phillips. Six months ago I’d never heard of him. Now he was the newest member of the merry band of clock fanatics I considered family. Zane had retired, but it didn’t take much to talk him into moving down to Orchard permanently and helping out in the shop.

  “Zane, you’ve seen the inventory. We need help if we are going to get these clocks taken care of,” I’d said to him in January.

  “You have some real beauties, that’s for sure. That French Charles X portico clock—I’d love to get my hands on her. I’ve worked on some like it, but never one so stunning.”

  “Tell you what—that can be your project,” I said. I forced the smile on my face to stay in place, even though I was disappointed. I’d hoped to make the portico a post-tower project, but getting Zane to stay was more important. If I was going to pull this clock tower off, I needed his help. The only person who my grandfather had discussed his dream with more than me was Zane, as it turned out. That, and the fact that Zane had risked his life to save Caroline meant that he was a man I wanted to have around.

  “Listen, you don’t have to talk me into this. I’ve got nothing waiting for me back in Vermont, and you’ve got enough clocks to keep me busy the rest of my life. Plus, Thom’s tower. Now, working on that would be a real privilege. No, you don’t have to talk me into this. As long as I don’t have to be in the store every day. You know, punching a clock. I’m done with that.”

  “You can stay out at the cottage, in the guest room out in the shop. You never have to come into the Cog & Sprocket if you don’t want to.”

  As it turned out, Zane did visit the shop, fairly often. At first he and Pat Reed had circled around each other like a couple of old dogs marking their turf, but soon enough they decided to call a truce. Zane enlisted Pat to help him get more clocks ready for sale, teaching him what he didn’t know.

  “I feel like I’m back in school,” Pat said one night after he finally got a grandfather clock put back together. “Zane is one hell of a teacher.”

  “Not too much of a know-it-all?” I asked. Sometimes I bristled at Zane’s tone, but I tamped it down. Clock making was an apprenticeship business, and Zane knew a lot more than I did.

  “Not on purpose. I’ve asked Zane to teach me some more about basic fixes, so I can do house calls on my own.”

  House calls for a clockmaker were actually fairly common, especially for large clocks. Sometimes we went out to see if we could do an easy fix. Other times we went out to give them an estimate for repair. If we were going to bring the clocks into the shop, someone had to get them ready to move. Then there were the winding jobs—winding longcases in colleges or clock towers in town squares. Sometimes these were two-man—two-person—jobs. I wouldn’t mind letting Zane and Pat handle some of them on their own.

  “Hello,” I called out as I came into the shop through the back entrance.

  “In front,” Pat called back.

  “Happy winding day,” I said. I went over to my workstation and took the ring of keys out of the top drawer. I walked through the gap in the cabinetry that blocked the front from the back of the shop. The workroom still had the aura of my grandfather’s shop. That was on purpose. The front of the shop was very different. Also on purpose.

  “I’ve got the clock map and the keys,” I said, holding up the staples for winding day. The ring held the case key, and the winding key was left inside the clock. When we moved them, we knew to take out the winding key. We numbered the clocks and put the keys on the ring in that order. If locks stuck we changed them out until everything was perfect. There are never a shortage of keys in a clockmaker’s shop.

  We diagrammed the numbered clocks. Neither Pat nor I needed the drawing anymore, but we still pulled it out and laid it on the front counter anyway. I’d rendered the shop from the perspective of the front door and included scaled drawings of each wall. I’d also noted the type, year, maker, and any other information that h
elped each clock stand out. This document captured the shop as it was at this moment. Every time we wound the clocks, I recognized that next week, our job might be different. One sale took me back to the drawing board. I never threw out the drawings—instead I dated them and put them in a large portfolio case. Sketching each clock was relaxing for me, and Nadia used the sketches on the website.

  On winding day, Pat followed me around with a pad and kept notes on each of the clocks. “Tension is off.” “Door latch stuck.” “The mechanism sounds off.” Those notes became the to-do list for the next hour or so. Usually. Today, even though we pretended it was just another Saturday, we had a different to-do list that was hindering our concentration.

  We’d gotten through a half-dozen clocks before the events of that afternoon came up.

  “Still not sure how folks are going to sign their names,” he said.

  “We got a half-dozen Dremels to use for engraving.”

  “They aren’t going to make very deep impressions in the metal,” Pat said.

  I sighed. We’d had the same discussion a dozen times before, but hadn’t come up with a better solution. Pat was right, the names would be scratches.

  “Let’s have them write their names with Sharpies first, then they can scratch their name with the Dremel,” I said. “Folks don’t expect their great-grandkids to see the names in full. We’ll take pictures and include them in the archives.”

  “Kim Gray will expect to see her name,” Pat said, a smirk stretching the sides of his mouth.

  “That’s why we are having her sign the decorative copper piece. Kim, the Board of Selectmen, Jeff Paisley—they’ll all be signing sheets of copper that we will use on the clock, as the flaps that slow the bell down after it has chimed. Kim will be fine.” I couldn’t look Pat in the eye. Neither of us believed that for a second.

  “Flaps that slow things down. Sounds very fitting for her,” Pat said. I tapped his upper arm and he laughed. We moved on to the next clock, and he opened the case.

  My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I took it out and looked down at the caller ID. Speak of the devil.