The Hayloft: a 1950s Mystery (10 page)

I went with her. You don’t argue with an
irresistible force.

CHAPTER 11

My parents arrived at the farm about noon,
along with my two younger brothers. Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Jeff had
invited them over for Sunday dinner, thinking that we probably
missed each other. I was glad to see them, in spite of the fact
that I had never been homesick in my life. My mother gave me a
kiss; my father shook my hand. My brothers asked me how things were
going as if they really cared.

Having been an only child all week, I was
ready to toss a football around with them, but my father
immediately steered me away from the group toward the outdoor brick
fireplace, built by Uncle Jeff for holding summer barbeques, and
the baseball diamond beyond the fireplace, which featured a large
green backstop made of wood, also built by Uncle Jeff. The diamond
had grown up to waist-high timothy grass and weeds since Ralph
hadn’t been there to mow it during the summer.

My father was dressed in his Sunday best,
which included a conservative three-piece suit and a tie. It was
also his Monday best, etc., because he wore the same clothes to
work. He was several inches shorter than I was now, which I was
glad of because it appeared to give me a physical advantage, even
though I probably didn’t weigh any more than he did.

“Dorothy told us what classes you’re taking,”
my father said, without preliminary. “It sounds as if you have a
good, meaty schedule. I hope you’re keeping your nose to the
grindstone and studying hard. I don’t want to see a repeat of what
happened at Atherton.”

“Yes, Dad.” In fact, I had been studying more
than I would have if I had been home. Other than the single chess
game with Uncle Jeff, I hadn’t had any distractions in the
evenings. My aunt and uncle hadn’t succumbed to buying a television
set yet, and, although I was a voracious reader, I had done my
homework each night before opening a non-academic book. It helped
that Uncle Jeff was available to assist me with any math questions
and Aunt Dorothy was equally adept at English and history.

“I’m concerned about the academic quality at
Carter as opposed to Atherton. Dorothy assures me that the teaching
staff is sound, but I have my doubts.”

I had my doubts, too, especially after what
Sylvia had told me about Mr. Plover, although my teachers at least
seemed to have mastered the basics of their subjects. I didn’t
think it was a good idea to express any misgivings to my father,
because I didn’t want to transfer to yet another school. I told him
that I thought my teachers were all right.

“There’s something else I want to talk to you
about. Are you familiar with the communist investigations going on
in Washington?”

“Yes.” I wanted to appear knowledgeable.

He raised his eyebrows as if not quite
believing me. In spite of the high academic standards that he had
set for me, my father was always skeptical about whether I actually
learned anything.

“Several local people are being investigated
for activity inimical to the interests of the United States. One of
them has a daughter who goes to Carter.”

Could he be talking about Sylvia’s father? In
his work at the Buffalo city hall, my father had a lot of political
connections at all levels, including federal. Therefore, I
shouldn’t have been surprised that he knew about communist
investigations, but it was a shock, nevertheless.

“This man just testified before the Internal
Security Subcommittee of the Senate,” my father continued. “His
name is Michael Doran. Although he said that he hasn’t been a
Communist for a number of years, when asked what he knew about
other people, he invoked the fifth Amendment.”

“Isn’t that his privilege?” I asked.

“We’re talking about the security of the
United States. In any case, he’s going to lose his job.”

“Lose his job?”

“Yes. He works for the Buffalo Express,
writing editorials. It’s a particularly sensitive area, because he
has the opportunity to spread his subversive opinions among the
unwashed proletariat. But he’s going to be out of a job. His
daughter’s name is…Sylvia, I think. Do you know her?”

“A little.”

“I want you to stay away from her.”

“But what has she done? She’s—”

“Don’t have anything to do with her.”

My father had a way of shutting me out that
prevented me from responding. Perhaps it was because I remembered
how angry he could get. When I was younger, this anger had
sometimes resulted in a spanking, by his hand or, occasionally, a
stick from our woodpile.

Another car was coming slowly up the driveway
that had been paved mostly with the ashes from the coal furnace.
The coal furnace was gone, having been replaced by an oil furnace
only a few years ago. The driveway ran up the right side of the old
brick house. The car, even older than the Ford I was driving,
stopped opposite the kitchen door.

“Those must be the Drucquers,” my father said
in a completely different tone. He turned away from me and walked
back toward the house.

The discussion was over, to my relief, but I
didn’t have time to digest what he had just said. Aunt Dorothy had
invited the Drucquers for Sunday dinner, so that we could get to
know them. Four people piled out of the car, all of them dressed
for church. The two ladies wore hats and white gloves. My parents
were churchgoers, also, but Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Jeff weren’t; at
least they hadn’t been since Ralph died. Any religious spark within
the two had apparently died with him.

Mr. and Mrs. Drucquer were short and round,
with red faces and English accents even more pronounced than Ed’s.
Mr. Drucquer’s threadbare suit didn’t quite fit him, and he looked
as if he were uncomfortable wearing it. Mrs. Drucquer had a run in
one of her stockings.

Kate Drucquer didn’t really fit in with the
rest of the family, as Tom and Archie had already told me. She was
pretty and slim, with short, red hair and green eyes. Under her
light coat, she wore a blue dress with a white, Peter Pan collar,
as my mother called it. She had almost no accent. I vaguely
remembered seeing her at school. She would be a sophomore now, like
Tom.

I noticed that Ed and Kate called the older
generation “Cousin.” Cousin Dorothy and Cousin Jeff, and my parents
were Cousin Tom and Cousin Sarah. I thought about it and determined
that they were cousins, not uncles and aunts. I suspected that they
had been drilled by their parents.

Once introductions were made, we trooped into
the kitchen where appetizing odors permeated our nostrils, and from
there into the dining room. Aunt Dorothy had cooked a turkey, as if
it were Thanksgiving, and for dessert she had baked apple pie,
featuring apples from the old apple orchard, cherry pie, with
berries from the sour cherry tree, and rhubarb pie. I had picked
the rhubarb, along with hubbard squash and tomatoes, from her
garden that morning.

I had also set up two card tables at the end
of the dining room table, and by appropriating chairs from various
parts of the house, we managed to seat all eleven people. Tom
wangled a chair next to Kate.

Halfway through dinner, in answer to
questions from Tom and me about our ancestry, Mr. Drucquer started
to speak in his strong British accent.

“I did some investigation of our genealogy
when we lived in England. I found out that the original spelling of
Drucquer is D-R-U-K-K-E-R. The Drukkers lived in Holland. One of
our common ancestors is reputed to have been a bareback rider in
her grandfather’s circus.”

“Was she also a bare front rider?” Tom asked,
to disapproving looks from my parents and a stifled giggle from
Kate.

“She married a man named Drukker,” Mr.
Drucquer continued, as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Then she and
her husband immigrated to England under mysterious circumstances,
in 1831, and changed their name to D-R-U-C-Q-U-E-R, which is a
made-up spelling. There are no more Drucquers living in England. We
were the last of them.”

“Maybe they were running from the law,”
Archie said. “It would be fun to have some black sheep in the
family.”

My father scowled at Archie, but Mr. Drucquer
smiled and said, “It’s not clear which side of the law they were
on. Their names were John and Adelade. His real name was Joachim,
but he changed it to John when he reached England. They had two
sons shortly after they went to England. I am descended from one of
the sons. You yanks are descended from the other son. And each of
them had a son.”

“Who were grandsons of John and Adelade,” I
said, trying to keep the relationships straight.

“Right. The grandson who stayed in England
was my grandfather and he was named John, after his grandfather.
And I am named John, after both of them. He died when I was young,
but I remember him telling me stories about his grandparents.”

“Please pass some more turkey,” Archie said.
“This is exciting.”

“Unfortunately, my grandfather didn’t tell me
everything. Perhaps he thought the details were too sordid for a
young person, or perhaps he just didn’t know. So I asked my father.
He and his father had questionable communications skills with each
other, but he said he had heard stories. First, I should tell you
that, although according to census records, the original John had
many jobs during his lifetime, while he was in Holland, he was a
tutor. My father said that he tutored some children who were
members of Dutch royalty.”

“Like princesses?” Kate asked.

“Very possibly. One story is that a member of
the royal family took a liking to Adelade and that the couple had
to flee in the middle of the night to get away from him.”

Mr. Drucquer paused to take a bite and let us
digest this information. Every eye was focused on him.

“The other story is that when they left
Holland, they took a valuable piece of jewelry belonging to the
royal family. It was supposedly worth a king’s ransom, so to
speak.”

“A diamond necklace,” Kate said.

Ed had mentioned a diamond necklace to Tom
and Archie. “I can see why they changed the spelling of their
name,” I said. “What happened to the necklace?”

“It has never surfaced, as far as I can
tell,” Mr. Drucquer said. “Which makes the story extremely dubious.
John and Adelade never had much money. Neither did my grandfather.
It is true that they would have had trouble selling the necklace in
England without a lot of questions being asked. Maybe I shouldn’t
say this because I don’t want to cause dissension, but my father
said there was a rumor that the grandson who came to America
brought it with him. He was named Thomas, the same as you two,” he
said, indicating my father and my brother.

“That would be Dorothy’s and my grandfather,”
my father said. “And I can tell you that he and his family were not
wealthy. He was able to buy the farm, but he worked hard for it. It
didn’t come easily.”

“If the necklace suddenly appeared, would you
own it together like you own the farm?” Tom asked.

He was referring to my father and Aunt
Dorothy. We had known since we were young that they owned the farm.
Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Jeff paid rent to my father for living
here.

“Of course, I married Dorothy for her money,”
Uncle Jeff said, smiling. “But I wish she’d make a will to protect
me in my old age.”

“It runs in the family,” my mother said. “Tom
won’t make a will either.”

She was referring to my father, not my
brother.

“If we die without a will, our spouses will
inherit, according to law,” my father said firmly, in an attempt to
close off the discussion.

I knew from experience how stubborn and
opinionated my father was. “But what if they die first?” I asked,
suddenly concerned about my own future.

“Then our children inherit, then other living
relatives.”

“We’re almost out of living relatives,” Aunt
Dorothy said. “I think John here and you kids are the only
ones.”

She looked at Ed and Kate. There were too
many males named John and Thomas in the family. It was difficult to
figure out which one we were talking about. I was glad my name was
unique.

“But that’s enough morbid talk for one
dinner,” she continued. “Who wants some pie?”

CHAPTER 12

After dinner, Ed proposed that we youngsters
play in the hayloft of the large red barn that had been built next
to the road fifty years ago. I pointed out that he and Kate were
hardly dressed for playing in a hayloft. Ed said that they had
thought of that and had brought along play clothes. So had Tom and
Archie. We had often played in the hayloft on past visits to the
farm, and for that reason, we always came prepared. Apparently Ed
and Kate had also played in the hayloft before.

We all changed into blue jeans with holes in
the knees, old sweatshirts, and sneakers and trooped along the
narrow concrete walkway across the lawn to the barn. It had been
recently painted and was in good repair. The green roof had
lightning rods along the peak. Inside, it was dark and smelled like
a barn, even though no animals were kept here anymore. Odors of
manure and silage remained from the ghosts of cows who had once
been milked while standing in the metal stanchions on the ground
floor.

Tom led the way up the rickety iron ladder to
the hayloft. He pushed up the trapdoor and secured it with a hook.
Kate went next, and Tom gave her a hand to help her make the
transition from the ladder to the wooden floor of the loft, rubbed
smooth and somewhat slippery by the polishing effect of hay bales
being slid across it. The rest of us were on our own.

Tom had turned on the floodlight that
illuminated the basketball court in the center of the hayloft. The
only other light came from a window at the top of one end of the
barn. Uncle Jeff had built the backboard for Ralph when he was
young. The court took up the center third of the voluminous open
space. Another third was filled with a twenty-something-foot-high
pile of loose hay, and the remaining third contained rectangular
hay bales, stacked up to several feet below the window.