Chapter 14 Luke

CHAPTER 14

LUKE

It took Luke a lot longer than he'd expected to figure out the clue hidden in the mysterious poem Sarafina wrote for her daughter. Almost two weeks in fact, and he'd even cheated by running it through several AI apps. When that didn't help, he'd written a quick program to try to discern the meaning, but nothing seemed to work.

That is, nothing had worked until exactly two fifteen that afternoon. He'd been sitting at the counter at the Moonlight Café with a cup of coffee, doodling on the back of a napkin while on the phone with a fellow cybersecurity specialist who was complaining about a troublesome client, when his brain had landed on the answer with a definitive thud. He'd been so pleased with himself that even now, almost an hour later, he was still fighting the urge to do a happy dance.

"Nailed it," he murmured under his breath, unable to stop himself from giving the air a quick fist pump as he thought about how excited Tay would be.

"Are you punching the sky?"

He looked down to find Lulu eyeing him with suspicion. He was walking her to the bookshop from the bus stop, her small hand tucked in his. "This is called a fist pump." He demonstrated it for her. "It means you're winning at something."

Lulu made a fist and pumped it in the air, hopping a little as she did so.

"Well done," he said approvingly, as he did whenever she copied him. He loved those moments. Loved them more than he'd thought possible.

When he'd first gotten custody of Lulu, he hadn't realized how addicted he'd become to her antics. But addicted he was. Now she was such a huge part of his life that he had trouble remembering what it had been like before she'd arrived. It was as if everything had gotten bigger, brighter, and better.

He shifted her book bag to his other shoulder and opened the door to the bookshop, smiling as she ran in ahead of him. He followed, his gaze instantly turning toward Tay's office.

He expected to see her sitting at her desk, her head bent over old Register s, just as he'd left her not three hours ago to run some errands, but she was nowhere to be seen. Where is she? I have to tell her—

"She'll be back in a few minutes," Grandma Rose said from where she sat on her stool behind the counter. "She went to Ava's tearoom to pick up a snack for Lulu."

Lulu yelled "YAY!" at a decibel level that made him wince.

"That's enough of that," Grandma Rose said firmly.

"Look, Grandma Rose. I have pump fists." The little girl swung wildly at the ceiling with both fists and would have fallen had Luke not scooped her up under one arm like a sack of flour, which made her giggle.

Grandma Rose snorted. "You're a wild one today, aren't you?"

Luke carried Lulu to the children's corner and plonked her onto her chair. "You have homework to do." He stooped down, opened her backpack, and dug out her crayons. Then he found the assigned page and placed it on the little table. "It says to color the circles red and the squares purple."

Lulu leaned to one side so she could see around him to the door. "I'll wait until Miss Tay comes with my snack."

"You can have your snack once you finish your homework." He could see Lulu was about to argue, so he stood up. "You'd better hurry. If she brings cupcakes, it'll be hard for me to resist eating a second one, and then there won't be any for you. Just saying."

Lulu didn't like that one bit, but after burning him in place with an outraged glare, she picked up her purple crayon and started to color, although he noticed she wasn't even trying to stay within the lines.

He wandered over to where Grandma Rose sat watching him. She'd been doing that a lot lately, eyeing him as if she were trying to guess his weight. "What are you looking at?"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to figure out."

What did that even mean? But before he could get clarification, the door swung open and Tay came in. She looked like a college student today in her jeans, sweatshirt, and jean jacket, her glasses perched on her head. She waved at him and Grandma Rose and then stopped by Lulu's table, reached into the bag she carried marked PINK MAGNOLIA TEAROOM , and placed a pink cupcake in front of Lulu.

"Thank you!" Lulu greedily reached for the cupcake.

"What did I say?" Luke warned. "Homework first."

Lulu's smile melted into a frown. "I want a cupcake!"

Tay set the bag to one side and stooped beside Lulu. "Is your homework hard?"

"No," Lulu admitted with a pout. "I just don't want to do it."

Tay nodded as if that explained it all.

Luke was glad to see that Lulu was warming up to Tay. Even though Lulu had a personality bigger than her small body, ever since Caitlyn's trouble, she tended to be shy around those she didn't know.

"I have an idea." Tay cupped her hand around her mouth to whisper loudly to Lulu, "Strike a deal with your uncle. Offer to do half of the work for half of the cupcake. You get the other half when you finish."

Lulu immediately turned to Luke and announced, "I'll make you a deal."

"Oh, you will, will you?"

Her curls bounced with each nod. "I do half of my homework, then I eat half of my cupcake. I'll save the rest for when I get done."

Luke could hear Grandma Rose muttering from behind the counter, saying how she'd have never gotten away with striking a deal back in her day. He rubbed his chin as if considering Lulu's offer. "That seems pretty fair." He went to where she sat and held his hand up for her high five. "It's a deal."

Lulu slapped his hand hard and then picked up her cupcake.

Tay ruffled Lulu's hair and then got back to her feet, reclaimed her bag, and came to the counter. She set the bag in front of Grandma Rose. "There are cupcakes for both of you, too."

"You are sweeter than sweet tea." Grandma Rose came out from behind the counter and elbowed Luke in the ribs. "Isn't she?"

" Ow! " Luke rubbed his side and shot her an annoyed glance. "What was that for?"

"It was to remind you to thank Miss Tay for being so nice. How many women do you know who'd get you a cupcake without even asking?"

He frowned at his grandmother. Good Lord. This woman. Over the past week, it had become painfully obvious that she was matchmaking. Worse yet, she was doing it with the delicacy of a crazed bull in a glass shop.

Tay had noticed it, too, because she began backing away toward her office. "I should get back to work and— See you two later." She spun around and hurried off.

Great. Just great. Luke turned back to Grandma Rose. "What in the heck was that?"

"Nothing." With an air of satisfaction, Rose watched as Tay went into her office and closed the door before settling down at her desk. "I was just making small talk."

"You were making small talk and big problems." He wondered if he should find out when and why she'd decided to interfere in his love life, and then realized it would be a waste of time. "Mind watching Lulu? I need to tell Tay something."

"Sure." Grandma Rose eyed him with interest. "Tell her what?"

He shot her an impatient glance. "Something about work. Nothing else."

Grandma Rose couldn't have looked more disappointed. "You're not going to ask her what she's doing for dinner or invite her over for ‘Netflix and chill' or—"

"Stop it! Whatever this is"—he waved in her general direction—"just quit."

Grandma Rose sniffed. "I was just trying to help. But I heard you, so get, then."

He started to reply, when some customers came in. Hopefully that will keep Grandma Rose busy. Without another word, he made his way to Tay's office, careful not to look as if he was hurrying.

Tay was seated at her desk, reading an old Register line by line, searching for the names on her "must find" list.

"How's it going?" he asked.

"Slowly." She didn't even look up, her glasses resting about halfway down on her nose. "I just discovered that, according to the paper, Sarafina's aunt Jane sang in the cantata and was pretty good at it too." Tay turned a page, her gaze still on her work.

He went to his desk and found the folder holding the original poem and letter from Sarafina. He tucked it under his arm, dropped into his chair, and slowly wheeled his way to her desk. He wasn't exactly sneaking up on her, as the thing creaked as if it were about to explode. It was more of Hey, look! An announcement is about to be made!

She looked up just as he rolled his chair up next to hers. "What is it?"

This was it. The moment he'd been waiting for. He leaned back in his chair and grinned. "I solved the riddle."

She just stared at him.

His smile slipped. "I solved it, Tay. I really did."

Her eyes widened and her mouth formed a perfect O.

She looked so cute that Luke grinned as he reached over, put one finger under her chin, and closed her mouth. " This is why we need a wine fridge. We could be having champagne right now."

Her gaze was now locked on him. "Before you tell me what you think the answer is, explain how you got it."

"Sure." He opened the folder and pulled out the original poem and letter and set them side by side. "I made the same error at first that others must have. Because Sarafina wrote this toward the end of her life, everyone—including me—assumed that the poem held clues that pertained to New York City, where Sarafina and David were married and Lucy was born. But then it dawned on me. What if the family secret has to do with Sarafina's earlier life when she lived here?"

Tay's brows knit as she considered this. "You think the clues in this poem are about Dove Pond. From the records we have, we know that after she left, she only returned to town one time, and that was with her husband, David. It was a very short and hurried visit, too, less than a week. That makes it seem that she'd decided that her time here wasn't all that important."

"Maybe she had a reason not to return. A disagreement with her aunts or—I don't know. All I do know is that I think the clues in this poem are about Dove Pond. Once I realized that, the whole thing made sense." He leaned forward. "It works, Tay. Every line works."

Tay absently rubbed her neck just below one ear, as if easing the tension there. "It's a stretch, but… you might be right." She tapped an insistent finger on the poem. "Now give me the details."

He pointed to the first line. "Where do you find all of these things: a truth, a name, a number?"

"I don't know. I've read this poem a million times and I couldn't come up with anything."

"They're on a tombstone, Tay. A truth, a name, and a number." He counted it out on his fingers. "The fact that they're dead, the name of the deceased, and the date they died."

She scooted forward, her chair complaining as she did. "Go on."

"Now look at the next lines. Told to all yet soon mentioned by none. He carved it in stone where peace meets up in oaken silence. "

"Now that you've determined the beginning line was about a tombstone, I would guess this portion is talking about a graveyard."

"Exactly." He didn't have to explain it, but he did anyway. " Told to all yet soon mentioned by none. When you die, it's announced in newspapers, in church bulletins, and on death certificates, and yet soon the names of the dead are rarely spoken."

She nodded slowly. " So he carved it in stone where peace meets up in oaken silence. For decades people have said that the term ‘oaken' was important. When I thought of New York City, I couldn't find a connection. But if it's Dove Pond, then it's the Oak Hill Cemetery."

"Yes!" He leaned back and grinned. "Which is owned by my family, by the way."

"It's a private cemetery? I didn't realize that."

"Oh yes. And it's old, old, old." He was grinning from ear to ear and felt about two feet taller, and he was pretty tall to begin with. "What do you think? Do I deserve champagne or not?"

"It works." She still looked slightly stunned. "It really works."

"I guess that Dove Pond was in Sarafina's heart, even though she didn't visit but that one time." He cut a glance at Tay. "How much of a record is there for that visit, by the way?"

"We only know about it from something David wrote in a letter to his solicitor. He wrote that they'd come here and had met with the town council and ‘had made their request.' Other than the fact they only came that once and they stayed for less than a week, we don't know anything else."

That was interesting. "What did they request of the town council?"

"No one knows, as the minutes for that particular meeting are missing." Tay pushed her chair away from her desk. "We need to visit Oak Hill Cemetery. The family secret could be right there."

"Or there could be another clue," he pointed out. It would be a little disappointing if all it took to find a treasure was one simple riddle, no matter how many weeks it had taken him to decipher it.

"How far away is the cemetery?" Tay asked. "I know what road it's on, but it's been ages since I've been by there."

"It's a twenty-minute drive, no more."

She jumped up and began collecting her things. "Since your family owns it, I assume there are only Days buried there."

Luke rolled his chair back to his own desk. "There's a Dove family section, too. Their property abutted the Days', and they shared the plot for a while before they sold it along with some farmland." At her surprised look, he added, "I looked up the property records last night, as they're all online and I couldn't sleep. When I was in high school, I mowed the cemetery every Friday afternoon, too."

She grabbed her jean jacket from the back of her chair and pulled it on. "I'll drive. My Jeep is just outside." Satchel and coffee in hand, she led the way out of the office.

Grandma Rose looked up as they neared the counter. "Going somewhere?"

He nodded. "We're off to check something out."

Lulu, halfway through eating the last half of her cupcake, stood. "Can I go?"

"Sit," Grandma Rose said firmly. "Your dad and Miss Tay have some work to do."

"Thank you." Luke gave Lulu a quick hug and a goodbye before he followed Tay out the door and to the parking lot, where a red Jeep Cherokee sat.

"Nice wheels," Luke said as he climbed into the passenger seat.

"I wish it was mine, but I'm borrowing it from Trav Parker."

"He and Grace live next door to you all. I'd forgotten that." Luke liked Trav, who owned the only repair shop in town and was a gifted mechanic.

Tay buckled her seat belt. "Grace was the one who suggested Trav lend this Jeep to me. He must own five or six vehicles, and Grace says she has to play car Tetris every morning before work, just to get out of her own driveway."

Luke laughed as he buckled his seat belt. "That would get old." He watched as Tay expertly backed out of the parking space, and they were soon on their way. As she drove, he shot her a quick glance. "The style of this vehicle suits you, but I never took you as the Jeep sort."

She flashed him a surprised look. "What's the ‘Jeep sort'?"

"You know, outdoorsy."

She sniffed. "I can be outdoorsy."

"Really?" He turned in his seat so he could see her expression. "How many times have you been camping in your life?"

"Once, when I was ten."

"I see. Do you fish, then?"

She turned the Jeep off Main Street. "No."

"Sail?"

"No. Look, I'll save you some time. I don't camp or fish or sail. But I do walk."

He had to smile at her lofty tone. "You mean hike? Like in the woods?"

"No, just walk, and usually on sidewalks. That's still outside. I've always lived in cities near universities, and you can't do those other things there. But you can always walk."

He couldn't argue with that.

She stopped the Jeep at a stop sign, and then drove on before casting a curious glance his way. "Do you fish or hike or any of those things?"

"I camp, hike, and read at least one book a week. Some weekends, I ride my Kawasaki KX 450 around the old fire roads through the mountains. In between, I'm raising Lulu, which presents its own challenges." Mentioning Lulu almost always won the day. Women usually sent him admiring glances when he reminded them that he, a single male, was voluntarily raising his own niece.

He waited, but all Tay did was murmur, "Interesting," in such a bland tone that he was pretty sure she thought him anything but.

Luke had decided a while ago that Tay's prickliness was due to her ex. He'd taken the time over the past week to get the gossip on Tay Dove and had managed to catch Kat Carter at the Moonlight Café in a particularly talkative mood. Her version of Tay's betrayal had little to do with book rights, so in some ways, he knew more than she did. But she knew a few interesting facts Tay hadn't shared. Mainly that Richard was her department head and her boss, and secondly that Tay hadn't dated much at all before this last relationship.

Those two facts explained why that jerk's behavior weighed so heavily on Tay. Getting over heartbreak was never easy, and from the sound of things, it had been a first for her. Luke stared out his window in the general direction of Boston. Thanks for making life hard for those of us who might want a chance, jerk.

Tay turned onto Hill Road, which was surrounded on each side by brown winter pastureland that was just turning green and would soon be dotted with gold and purple wildflowers. A brisk wind roiled the fields, making the grass wave as if it were an ocean. Behind the fields rose purple and green-gray mountains that touched the blue sky.

Tay must have noticed the vista just as Luke did, because she sighed. "Even in the winter, it's pretty out here."

He couldn't agree more. "Do you miss living here?"

Her gaze returned to the road ahead. "I miss belonging someplace."

He could understand that. "I was a little discombobulated when Lulu and I moved here. I'd visited once in a while, because of Grandma Rose, but living here is different. Now it feels like home. I like it."

"It's a nice town. Maybe one day I'll move back."

"Really? You've thought of doing that?"

She grinned. "Not really, no. But I should. I always end up in college towns that are charming and eclectic because they feel like home to me, like Dove Pond." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "To be honest, it would be nice to be closer to my sisters. They're— Oh. There's the cemetery."

An old wooden sign hung from a post that had aged to a faded gray. She turned into a small gravel lot and parked. He didn't wait for her to turn off the engine before hopping out and going to open her door.

He was just being polite, but her stiff, murmured "Thank you" was anything but appreciative. Sheesh, she has more boundaries than breaths.

He closed the door and followed her to the gate.

"I wonder how many cemeteries are in town."

He knew the answer to that because he'd looked just last night. "Seven. Five of them are located on private property, like this one. I haven't seen them all, but they're probably just as small. Then there are the two main ones, which are owned by local churches in town."

Tay unlatched the gate and pushed it open, the hinges protesting loudly. Oak Hill Cemetery was so named for the lone oak tree that towered over it and predated the town by at least a hundred years, if not more. The huge branches shaded the cemetery below and hindered the grass in some spots, so brown patches of earth were visible here and there.

Luke followed Tay through the gate, watching as she headed for the closest tombstones. Overhead, the wind shook the huge oak, sending down what must have been the last clinging leaf to join the others already thick on the ground. The tombstones were unevenly spread out and set in rows that, over time, had become less than straight. They were of different sizes and cuts, the lettering on some so faded as to make it difficult to discern the names and dates.

She knelt at the first tombstone and grimaced at the sight of the lichen covering the surface. "It's a good thing Grace left some cleaning supplies in that Jeep. Would you mind getting those rags and spray bottles from the bucket in the back? We may need to clean these in order to read them."

"Sure." He went back to her Jeep and collected the items she'd requested. He returned and tossed them to her, admiring her deft catch.

She looked around. "Where's the Dove section?"

He nodded toward the back corner, and she rose and went to look. She stooped in front of the first Dove tombstone and sprayed it down. "We should take photos of each one. That could be useful later."

He pulled out his phone and took a shot of the closest headstone, and then cast a critical eye over the picture. "We should take the photos in black and white. That should show the details better, and we can adjust the exposure when we need to."

She tried it on the next tombstone. "You're right! I'll do it that way from now on." She set to work then, her attention focused on her job. After moving methodically from headstone to headstone, she stopped at the end of the first row. "These must be some of the oldest tombstones in Dove Pond. This one says 1714."

"I think so." He rubbed clean some of the closer tombstones. "For a private plot, there are a surprising number of other families here. There are Doves, Carters, Parkers, and even some McClearys. I never noticed that when I was mowing the grass."

She shot him a curious look. "Who mows it now?"

"Grandma Rose hires it out. She takes her duties as family scion very seriously."

Tay went back to cleaning and photographing headstones, pausing when she reached the center row. "Ah! It's Marcus McCleary's grave."

Luke came to stand beside her. It was a rather plain headstone, flat and rectangular. Carved neatly into the greenish gray surface was MARCUS WINSTON M c CLEARY, APRIL 19, 1873 TO JULY 15, 1897 . "Take a lot of pictures."

"I plan on it. According to the court records, he died in prison just two months after he went to jail. That was no surprise, though. Some of the newspapers reported that he never recovered from his injuries from the robbery, plus he was already suffering from tuberculosis, too." She took a picture of the headstone and then checked it to make sure the lettering was readable.

"William Day wasn't injured, and yet he didn't last long after that, did he? What was it? Six months later?"

"Not quite four."

"Wow. And he was healthy. I guess jails were pretty brutal back then."

"I suppose so." She moved to the next tombstone and sprayed it down. "I wonder if there are medical records from that jail. I should check that, although it would be rare. Still, it doesn't hurt to look." She continued to work, finally reaching the last tombstone in her row. "Here is William Day's grave." It was a simple gravestone, much like the others. It read RIP, WILLIAM HARRIS DAY, BORN 1-3-1876, DIED 11-1-1897 . "The famous Dove Pond bank robbers, both in the same cemetery."

Luke shook out his rag and hung it over the fence at the edge of the graveyard and then slid his cold hands into his pockets. "I've seen these tombstones hundreds of times but never really paid attention to them. And now, here I am, hoping they'll let us decipher a supposed message from the past."

She reexamined the two headstones, peering at first one and then the other.

"See anything of interest?"

"No," she said in a regretful tone. She straightened and sighed. "Let's clean the rest of these. Maybe something will stand out."

He nodded. "Something has to."

They worked quietly after that, cleaning each and every tombstone. He had to admit, it would have been a little anticlimactic if the answer to Sarafina's coded message had been on the first marker they saw or emblazoned on William Day's tombstone. Puzzles were like that: if they were too easy to solve, a person could feel cheated.

He finished cleaning the final tombstone in his row and took a picture of it. As he did so, he glanced over at Tay and noticed how precisely she worked. She gently brushed the stones with the rag, as if they might crumble under her touch. Time and again, he'd witnessed how patient and careful she was. I like that about her.

They finally finished their task, and he waited as she took a photo of the final tombstone and then joined him. "Let's look at the pictures and see if we can spot anything special."

They traded phones, and he swiped through her photos as she looked through his. He paused now and then, wondering if the shape of the tombstones could mean anything, although they were all rather common. Then he went back and tried to see if the death dates might contain codes or a hidden meaning, but again he came up empty.

After looking at the final photo for what felt like the hundredth time, he handed her phone back. "I don't see anything."

"Me neither." She couldn't have looked more disappointed.

"Nothing seems unusual. There's some random scoring on the tops of some of these, but that's normal for stonework."

Her gray-green gaze flew to him. "Scoring?"

He pointed to the closest tombstone, and she went to look. He followed, more to hear what she had to say about it than to see it again.

There, on the top ridge of the stone, were two marks. They weren't anything to look at—just a line, followed by a chipped area. "Maybe they were in a vise of some sort while the carving was being done."

"Some have it and some don't. I don't know a lot about how they used to carve these things back in the day." She stood silently for a moment. "It's weird there's both a line and a chipped area, almost as if—" She froze and then stepped closer to the stone. "The poem."

"What about it?"

"That one line. Where peace meets up in silence. " Her gaze moved from the tombstone to somewhere far over his head.

"Up? You mean this tree?"

She clasped her hands together and gave an excited hop. "Can you climb it?"

"Are you serious?" He looked at the huge, rambling, heavy-limbed oak that spread over their heads. " This tree? Why?" He wasn't afraid of heights. They just made him uncomfortable.

"Because once you're high enough, you'll be able to take a picture of the tops of all the tombstones."

He tilted his head back and stared at the branches overhead, his shoulders tightening. "How far ‘up' are we talking about?" When she didn't answer, he glanced back at her.

She was gazing at the tree and grinning with excitement. It wasn't a special grin, not for her, but it made her eyes shine.

All his concerns and worries disappeared at the sight of that grin, and, to his surprise, he heard himself say, "Sure. I'll do it."

She tore her gaze from the tree. "Are you sure? I don't want you to take any undue chances if—"

"Heck no. Why, I've climbed a tree twice this tall before," he lied as he approached the gnarled trunk. Tree climbing wasn't exactly in his repertoire, a fact he'd discovered last summer when he'd had to save one of Lulu's kites, but he wasn't about to admit that to Tay. "This is nothing."

"Thank you," she said in such a fervent tone that he forgot his growing worries.

So it was that, five minutes later, Luke found himself precariously draped over a swaying limb, holding his phone as he tried to balance himself while taking a photo.

"Did you get it?" Tay called up to him.

"Just about." He tried to sound confident, but the branch was bobbing under him, and he wondered if he should have chosen one with more girth. "I just need to—" He slipped a little to one side and grabbed the branch with both hands, his phone almost falling from his grasp.

Whew. His heart raced as he waited for the limb to cease bouncing. When it did, he managed to get the necessary photographs. "I took a bunch of pictures. I'm pretty sure we'll have plenty."

"Did you get the whole graveyard? Maybe you should climb out a little farther just to make sure you have at least one shot with every tombstone in it."

He stuffed his phone into his coat pocket and eyed the branch in front of him. The end tapered some, and he wondered if it would hold his weight.

Still, she was watching, and he'd already gone this far, so what the heck, right? "Right," he told himself. "What's a few more feet of death?"

"What? I'm sorry. I didn't hear you."

"Nothing!" he called, although it wasn't nothing. He took a steadying breath and slowly crept forward a little at a time, the branch bouncing with each movement.

He swallowed a lump in his throat and carefully balanced himself. There. That's not so bad. He took a moment to slow his breath. Then, hanging on with one hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Gravity was doing something weird and trying to make him swing upside down on the branch, and it took all his concentration and leg strength to remain upright as he tried to take the picture. It took a few moments, but he finally managed to do it. "Got it!"

She gave an excited hop and clapped. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

It felt good, seeing her happy like that. I guess I did my part. "I'm coming down now." He slid his phone back into his pocket and, moving very slowly, inched his way backward, trying to avoid the smaller twigs that tended to slap him as he crept past.

He slid back a little farther, some of the rough bark coming loose under his rigid grip. Just a little more. A little more.

He'd made it another foot when, to his horror, he heard a loud CRACK!

The branch dropped a sharp inch, bouncing crazily beneath him.

Then it gave way, and he was abruptly dropped onto the branches below, flailing wildly. For what seemed like an eternity, he bounced down the tree, hitting what felt like every branch, every limb, before a few seconds of welcome silence engulfed him. With a suddenness that he couldn't quite comprehend, a huge WHOOMP knocked the wind from his chest even as a stab of pain shot through his wrist and arm.

Everything faded to black.