Page 54 of The Love Audit
My head snapped up to meet her gaze, and I shook my head.
“Well, I thought he might have. He looked a little shook up when he left here. My husband tends to overshare when he’s had too much to drink.”
“No, Derek didn’t mention it.” When I thought back to lastnight, I remembered Derek seeming tired, maybe a little lost in thought, but not shaken up.
“My husband’s great-grandfather was a very gifted inventor, especially when it came to farming. I think he might hold some kind of record for patents held; I’d have to ask David.” She shrugged and shook her head before pulling a heavily creased index card out of one of the plastic sleeves. “Pike berry tarts?” She raised an eyebrow while holding up the card.
“Sounds delicious.”
“Good.” She pulled a bag of flour out of a nearby cabinet and handed me a measuring cup. “Now, where was I? So, he studied in Alabama, and when he graduated from college, he settled in Tulsa, Oklahoma.”
“The Greenwood District?” I snapped to attention and had a feeling I knew exactly where this story was headed and why Derek would have been upset. “What year was this?”
“I think John William Pike got there in 1906 or ’07, but that’s where he amassed his fortune, creating innovations in farming equipment and selling the patents.”
“Was he there when…?” I trailed off, knowing Eleanor would understand exactly what I was asking without my having to say it.
“Oh, yes.” She nodded solemnly before scooping a few cupfuls of berries into a saucepan. “He managed to get his whole family to safety unharmed. So many others didn’t. I need two cups of sugar.” She pointed to the glass jar labeled “sugar” on the counter, and I got to work.
“Their home and all of their possessions were destroyed, and I suppose there were too many bad memories, so three familiesfrom Greenwood, including my husband’s family, decided to buy this land and settle here. They each bought a thousand acres—in each generation, it gets passed down to the oldest member of that family.”
“Is David the oldest Pike?” I folded the butter into the flour to make the pie crust.
“He is.” She nodded.
“And who are the other families?”
“Those are the Walkers and the Hodges. You met Minnie Hodge at dinner.” She smiled.
“Were there any Walkers at dinner?” I tried to think back to all the people I met that night, but I couldn’t remember anyone with the last name Walker.
“No.” She sighed and continued to stir the thickening, bubbling filling that was giving the kitchen the most delicious smell. “My husband had a falling-out with Dennis Walker.”
“What was it about?” I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible, though the curiosity was killing me.
“I’m gonna need a drink if I’m gonna keep telling this story.” She shook her head and wiped her hands on her apron. “Take over stirring the filling while I pour us a couple of glasses of wine.”
A few minutes later, the tart crust and the filling were chilling in the fridge while Eleanor and I sat at the kitchen table with our wineglasses.
“It was 1992, I was pregnant with our first, and we had just moved to Miller’s Cove. Both of David’s parents were still here, and they welcomed me like the daughter they’d never had. Things were pretty close to perfect until we got the word thatDennis Walker had sold his family’s share of Miller’s Cove to some corporation.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know for sure, but if you asked my husband and his parents, they would tell you that Dennis Walker was a gambling addict and a complete fool who didn’t have the sense that God gave a gnat.” She shook her head and took another sip of her wine. “They were furious. They tried everything to stop the sale, but it happened so fast that there was nothing they could do.”
“Why didn’t Dennis Walker offer to sell his portion of the town to the other two families?”
“That would have been the sensible thing to do, but as I said”—she waved her wineglass at me—“a complete fool. Rumor is that the Walkers were always jealous of the Pikes. While the fortunes of the other families waned, David’s family’s fortune continued to grow, thanks to the patents and a few wise investments over the years. I heard Dennis was the type to always have a plan or scheme that never seemed to pan out. I think he was too proud to come to the other families for help and probably sold the land to strangers out of spite.”
“So what happened to the land?”
“Oddly enough, nothing.” She shrugged and stood from the table. “It’s still there. Nothing’s changed. Initially, there were some rumblings about a resort, but that died away. David thinks the land is a tax shelter. Every once in a while, someone from MasonCorp—” My heart stopped at hearing the name of my company coming from Eleanor’s lips. “—that’s who Dennis sold the land to—will come sniffing around, but that hasn’t happened inover ten years. We were hoping to make MasonCorp an offer to buy the land back, but David doesn’t want to rock the boat.”
We rolled out the pie crust and cut it into squares before ladling the chilled filling onto half of them.
“Eleanor, what about the berries?” I watched as she used a fork to seal the tarts’ crusts.
“Oh yes, I was getting to that. John William Pike made his fortune with his many inventions, but he didn’t give everything away. He loved to experiment with plants: ways to make them grow faster, to get greater yields from harvests, and to increase their nutritional and medicinal values.” She closed the oven door after sliding the full trays of tarts inside. “He even created new species.”
