Just Killing Time (19 page)

It was a nice gesture. And it bought us some time. I know it wasn't rational, but I didn't want to have a memorial service before we knew what happened. It didn't seem right to say farewell to him until we could really let him rest in peace.

“Let's go back to the workroom,” I said. “I'll show you some of the work I've been doing.” Caroline didn't comment on the changes in the space, but I could tell she was taking them all in. We walked over to the desk area, and Caroline stared at it.

“The accounting logs, did you find them?” she asked.

“The log is upstairs. Pat also showed me the database Levi set up. I'm glad you were starting to computerize.”

“We were keeping paper shadow systems until Thom trusted the computers. He wasn't a big fan of technology. Though I do understand his reluctance on one level. Looking
through his notebooks, and thinking about the way his mind worked, I don't know if a computer could have kept up with him,” she said, smiling a little.

“I was surprised to see digital watches in the store. Yesterday I did a couple of electric repairs. I suppose that was more of the business these days. I'm surprised he was selling electric wall clocks, though. He never would have let them in the front door back in the day.”

“I let them in the back door, and he pretended not to see them. Before the investment in the clocks, we had some lean times. Not selling electric clocks just didn't make sense.”

“I was looking around the attic yesterday and saw a bunch of clocks that G.T. had made. Why didn't you sell those?”

“They weren't perfect. Your grandfather could admire the craftsmanship of other people's clocks, including the imperfections, but he wasn't as kind to himself. I kept trying to tell him that perfect was the enemy of good, but he wouldn't budge. This hole was off-center. That clock face was crooked. The tone of the chime wasn't satisfactory. A million excuses for them to go upstairs to the Clagan clock graveyard. His term. So, anyway, we needed to start to get creative about the work we brought in.”

“What do you mean?”

“We started to try and do a volume business. Pat would create cases, almost as a side business, and Thom taught him how to put electrics into them. Then Thom checked them. The clocks in the attic were more traditional. These new clocks could be built to order. To match cabinetry in a high-end kitchen, for example.”

“Did it help business?”

“It did, actually. Pat got a few custom orders, which we filled. People coming into the shop to pick them up saw the rest of the merchandise. And then, of course, there was the new inventory from the estate. I was starting to think about opening up the entire front of the shop, making it a showroom.”

“There's a lot of merchandise,” I said. “What were the plans for all of it? I met Jonah on Sunday and he mentioned the deal he had with you and G.T.”

“He and his sister Delia. Did you know Delia? She was the oldest daughter.”

“I think I do remember Delia, but more by reputation. She got sent to boarding school when she was in high school.”

“Probably the best thing that happened to her. She lives down in New York now, barely ever came up to visit her folks. But she seems to have made her way in the world, not like Aggie.”

“Aggie?”

“Aggie Kurt. She drives a delivery truck.”

“We met the other day. She's Jonah's sister? I just didn't make that connection.”

“She would have been long out of high school by the time you moved to Orchard. Jonah is the youngest,” Caroline said.

“This is going to sound terrible, but she seems a little off.”

“Far be it from me to speak ill of anyone, but I agree. She certainly put her poor parents through it. She married badly by all accounts. I never met her husband; he died a couple of years ago. She used her poor mother like a bank. After Harriet passed, Aggie asked her father to fund her latest venture, a high-end clothing store in Marytown. He agreed, but told her that was it, her inheritance.”

“I take it by the fact that she's driving a truck that didn't go well?”

“Not at all. By high-end she was talking New York and Boston prices, high fashion.”

“In Marytown?”

“In Marytown. Marytown is a college town. And high fashion and the Berkshires don't go hand in hand. Plus, her merchandise was ugly. I couldn't even find a scarf to buy the first time I went in, but Thom told me to patronize the store, talk it up.”

“I can't imagine Aggie running a high fashion store.”

“She cleaned up well. But her taste was suspect. Once a month I went over and bought a small piece and then tried to use it for a couple of days until I could put it away.”

“How long did the store stay open?”

“Longer than it should have. She took the closing hard, but her father was true to his word and finally turned the taps off. She was cut out of his will for the most part. Now, why were we talking about Aggie? I'd hate you to think I was a gossip.”

“We were talking about the deal you had with Jonah.”

“Ah yes, poor Jonah. His sisters both had legacies, but Jonah is the executor along with Thom. He was stuck in the middle of a family feud. He didn't know how to get rid of the clock collection while honoring his father's wishes, so he and Thom came up with a deal. We bought the collection, will sell it, and once we make a profit, they'll get a cut.”

“Sounds fair.”

“More than fair. Thom was taking care of his friend's family. Even Aggie saw that, after a fashion. It took her a while. She kept hammering at Thom, wanted to look at the
clocks, questioning when they would go on sale, how he was going to price them, all of it.”

“Did you have a plan for selling them, aside from opening up the shop and putting more clocks on display?” I asked gently. I didn't want to sound like I was judging, but at the same time, having a crowded showroom would not get rid of dozens of clocks. I hadn't decided what to do with the shop, but no matter what, the merchandise needed to be dealt with—and soon. I had to help Caroline pay that second mortgage back. It felt like a heavy burden that the sooner I figured out the better.

“I was trying to get more information on each piece when I had to leave town. I worked on it while I was up in Vermont. My son taught me how to use the Internet to do the searches. It saved me hours on research.”

“Not just the research,” I said. “A webpage could help sell some of the clocks online. Do you have a webpage yet?”

“Levi set one up. I was going to show it to Thom. Sounds like you two are going to gang up on me. He said the same thing about going online.”

“No ganging up, just helping however I can,” I said, laughing, and silently thanking heaven, and Levi, that I didn't have to teach Caroline how to Google.

“Well, I'd also done some sketches for Thom to look at. I thought we should take this wall down,” she said. I wondered if Caroline would have more success than my grandmother had?

T
he Cog & Sprocket was more than just a clock shop, and it always had been. Back in the day, horologists were a commodity, so people started to travel to Orchard to get their timepieces tended to. And Simon Clagan built clocks as well, which brought a higher-scale clientele into town. The shop didn't turn Orchard around on its own, but it played a part.

Simon's son was my great-grandfather Harry. From the stories I knew, the tradition of the horological gene skipping a generation started with Harry and continued with my father. My grandmother called Harry a bon vivant, but she always smiled when she said it. Harry was the reason the Cog & Sprocket still stood.

Harry was not a gifted clockmaker but he was a great salesman. Rumor had it that during Prohibition, the front of
the store was a speakeasy, serving a special “tea” that was offered after business hours and was hidden in grandfather clock cases during business hours. After Prohibition, he made it a real tearoom, creating a secondary business during the Great Depression. G.T. once told me that the Cog & Sprocket did pretty well in those days even though Harry didn't charge half of the people who came by for repairs or tea. Clocks were the family business, but keeping the business had required inventive thinking over the years. Harry may have been an average clockmaker but he was a very creative businessman.

I looked around; my grandmother had always kept a few historical pictures of the Cog & Sprocket on the wall. These walls were bare, but I could see the shadows where they'd been. I didn't really need to see them; they were etched in my memory. A picture of the old clock tower, before the fire. Another one of Harry on his wedding day. Another one of Harry and his father outside the Cog & Sprocket, sometime in the late 1800s. Harry had a smile that made him look like he was going to pop out of the picture.

I remembered being in the parlor one afternoon, helping my grandmother clean up after a demonstration on how to wind an eight-day clock. I was looking at the picture of Harry beaming outside the shop and told her that sometimes I felt him in the shop with us, especially when we were having events.

“I do too,” she said. “I knew him later in life, but he was still so charming and handsome the room stopped when he walked in. He was a wonderful man. And he did a lot of good in this town. A lot of good.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The Berkshires have seen their share of challenges over the years. Floods. A couple of mill fires that shut towns down completely. Orchard could have gotten lost, been taken over by the shadow of Harris University. But Harry, and your grandfather, have dug in over the years, making sure Orchard stands on its own and stays a place for people to have a small business, raise a family, be part of a community, have a good life. Not everyone appreciates what they've done, but they will someday.”

When I was going into high school, my parents got the opportunity to go to Dubai to teach. I didn't go with them, preferring to stay in the United States with my grandparents. The day my grandparents officially became my guardians when I was fifteen, my grandmother baked a cake and declared that henceforth every May 15 would be Family Day. My grandfather gave me a mantel clock that was broken, and a tool kit. I often wondered if my parents dumped me or if my grandparents rescued me, but whatever the reason, moving to Orchard saved me. I'd found a place to belong, and where I could just be a kid.

“I love the idea of opening up the shop,” I said, pulling myself out of my memories and turning to Caroline. I hope she didn't take that wrong. I still hadn't decided if I should move out here or go back to Boston and face that set of demons. “Yesterday, when I was poking around upstairs in the attic, I saw some old pieces of furniture. When I was a kid, I always thought of it all as so heavy and terribly old-fashioned. But now I seek that kind of furniture out and get it re-covered with more modern fabrics. That mixed style would work really well in here. And get some of the inventory up on the walls.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Caroline said.

“I am really surprised that G.T. left me the store,” I said. It felt like I was finally greeting the elephant in the room with a big wave.

“Thom changed his will a few times over the years, but you always inherited the Cog & Sprocket. Even though I worked here, it's your family's business. I know that. He seemed to think you loved it as much as he did.”

“I did. I do. I'd forgotten how much.” I turned on the shop computer and pulled up the database. “We need to get this in the cloud so you can start inputting your research and I can work on getting photos of the clocks taken and attached to the database. That's our best hope of getting the clocks online and sold.”

“Our best hope?”

“Caroline, I'm not sure what I am going to do with the shop. But whatever I decide, there are a lot of clocks that need to be accounted for. I can't begin to think of selling it yet, with so much money tied into the clocks themselves. I can't do that alone and am hoping you'll help. You and Pat.

“Why don't we walk through the shop and you can tell me what you were thinking.”

We both grabbed our notebooks and walked back around to the front door of the shop. I'd turned the corner when someone banged on the front door and rattled the doorknob.

Caroline walked around me and we met at the front door.

“There's still a sign on the door,” she said, sounding perplexed.

“I know—I saw it,” I said. The blinds covering the windows weren't the cheap, plastic mini blinds everyone was used to these days. These were old, heavy, metal blinds.
Really old. They predated me, I think. The Clagan family motto had always been “fix, don't replace.”

I opened the blinds a bit and peered out. I hated the squeak that came out of me, but the large set of eyeballs staring back at me would have stopped anyone's heart. The banging started again, and Caroline stepped in and looked out the window.

“Aggie Kurt. Just what I need today,” she muttered. “May as well open the door. Woman's like a dog with a bone when she has a delivery to make.” Caroline turned the locks and pulled the door open.

“Aggie,” Caroline said, opening the door.

“Caroline. I didn't know you were here.” The two women were the same height, but whereas Caroline looked like she'd stepped out of a catalog, with her perfectly coiffed hair, timeless fashion sense, and perfect accessories, the angular delivery woman looked like she was attempting to mirror Caroline, but had failed miserably. It wasn't just the ill-fitting uniform. Today her hair was barely brushed and her lipstick was even more crooked than it was when I first met her. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, and she stumbled a bit when she came into the shop, heading toward the countertop. She stopped when she saw me.

“You're both here,” she said.

“Where else would we be?” I asked.

She stopped and stared at me. Caroline stepped forward.

“Ruth, I see you've already met Aggie.”

“We met a couple of days ago,” I said.

“Saturday. Around two in the afternoon,” Aggie said.

“You have an amazing memory,” I said.

“I keep track of time and location. Have to. The bosses
keep track of me, all the time. Where I am, was. They keep these records via a computer and then they make me keep the records and then they compare. I'm always where I say I am.”

“Aggie, we are in the middle of some business. Did you stop by for a reason?” Caroline asked gently.

“Yes, sure, of course. I wouldn't come by for no reason, would I?” she asked. “I have a package for Mr. Thom Clagan. Or is it Mrs. Thom Clagan? That's one of you now, isn't it? As far as packages go?”

“Yes, it is.” I held my hand out.

“I should really ask for an ID, but I'll take Caroline's word for it. Can she receive packages sent to Thom, Caroline? Or do you want it? Since you're technically Mrs. Clagan, even if you never changed your name.”

“Oh for heaven's sake, just give her the package,” Caroline said, opening the door again and stepping back with her hand on the knob. “We'll be open for business again next week. Come back then and we'll have a cup of tea.”

“Opening again. That's good, Caroline. That's really good. So you think the meeting on Thursday will go well? I'm so glad to hear it. Orchard wouldn't be the same without the old Cog & Sprocket. Or the Town Hall. Just wouldn't be the same.” Aggie handed me the package and backed up out the door. “Just wouldn't be the same.”

“We aren't going anywhere,” Caroline said. She closed the door behind Aggie and then leaned on it as she threw all the locks again.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Aggie?”

“I meant more the conversation. She seemed a little, shall we say, strange, don't you think?”

Caroline sighed and started back up the stairs. “
Strange
is one word for it. Thom had never-ending patience with her. I don't. She has had a difficult time of it, but so have any number of us. She plays the victim card too easily and too often for my taste. But Thom used to say I was being too hard on her.”

I put the package on the counter. It was the packet from the real estate office.

Caroline walked over to the counter and ran her hand along the address label of the package. She fiddled with her wedding ring, rolling it around on her finger.

“You know, Ruth, when I first married your grandfather, I thought I was marrying a clockmaker who owned a shop where he sold and repaired clocks and watches. I expected a quiet life, maybe even a little dull, since Orchard was such a small town. I was so wrong. I didn't realize that your grandfather fixed more than clocks in this town.

“Have you noticed how the walls upstairs are all open now?” she asked.

“I have. I wondered about it. Was that another rehab project?”

“Not exactly. Pat's son, Ryan, needed work this past summer, so Pat hired him to help with some odd jobs. Ryan had the idea of opening up the space.”

“That shows some vision. I never saw beyond an apartment.”

“Thom wasn't interested and let him know. But nonetheless, a few hours later, the wall between the kitchen and the bedroom was gone. Rather than get angry, which I would have done, Thom said it looked pretty good, may as well finish the job. Which, of course, meant days of prep to close
off the upstairs from the shop. Hiring a Dumpster. Getting respirators.”

“Wow. I can only imagine.”

“The problem was that once the prep was done, Ryan lost interest. In fact, he'd taken another job that paid more. So Pat did the job himself. Happily, Ben Clover helped.”

“Ben? Barber Ben?” I asked. “Why did he help?”

“Why not? At that point, the town was blocking his license to open, so he had nothing better to do.”

“Why were they blocking it?”

“Who knows why this time? That board is always throwing its weight around. But that was another of Thom's fix-it projects. That one was a success.”

“And the Winter family ended up being a project?”

Caroline nodded. “I barely knew Grover's late wife, but I did know Grover fairly well. She was always so stylish, wearing the perfect outfit with the perfect jewelry. Never a hair out of place. Grover and Harriet had some interesting children, that's for sure.”

“Jonah called me last night. He asked for the two boxes he'd dropped by to be brought back over to him.”

“We took anything of value, but that doesn't stop Jonah from dropping off more collections and anything with the word
clock
on it. That's fine—take them back. They should keep anything sentimental, don't you think?” Caroline shook her head. “What was in the boxes this time?” she asked.

“Small pieces. I opened one to take a look and it was a Seth Thomas miniature. They're in the car.”

Caroline shook her head again. “They can't expect us to sell the clocks if they keep adding to what we have to repair and sell.”

“But I don't understand. Why did they need cash? Isn't the Winter family rich?” I asked.

“They were rich, but Grover spent a lot of it when Harriet got sick. Aggie took most of her inheritance early, which also strapped the family finances. That house and lifestyle took a lot of cash to maintain. It had been slipping for a while, but really took a dive after Grover died.”

I picked up the package Aggie had delivered and went to hand it to Caroline. She shook her head.

“Go ahead and open it,” Caroline said.

“Should you open it?” I asked.

“No, the shop is yours. And the meeting was about the shop.”

“Would he make a big business decision without checking with you?” I asked. I thought about my ex-husband, who, in retrospect, made a dozen decisions a day that affected me, but I had no say in them. My grandparents had always made decisions together, but perhaps he and Caroline didn't have the same kind of relationship.