Bitterroot Lake, Alicia Beckman [good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT] 📗

The front end of McCaskill Land and Lumber was as far from the hip showrooms of designer Seattle as you could get. Scuffed linoleum floor. A patchwork wall, lengths of rough-cut lumber tacked up next to samples in various finishes, and another displaying varieties of molding. A Mr. Coffee as old as the one at the lodge perched on a 1950s step table in the corner. The acrid odor of sawdust drifting in from the shop floor, accompanied by the whine and whirr of saws and sanders and planers.

Refreshing, to know your stuff was so good that you didn’t need to prove how cool you were.

Connor was standing now, his broad back to her. That minute was stretching itself out.

The final waiting room wall was hung with photos that had been there for decades. Her great-grandfather Con, looking the part of the prosperous early twentieth-century businessman in his dark suit and starched collar. Two lumberjacks wielding a crosscut saw standing next to the largest old-growth Ponderosa she’d ever seen. And in a thin black frame, a yellowed newspaper article with a photo she’d never paid attention to, three men posing before a giant machine, men in work shirts in a half circle behind them.

She leaned in to read the caption. “Deer Park Lumber Company founder Cornelius McCaskill, Frank Lacey, and G. T. Hoyt show off the new electric circular sawmill installed recently at their Deer Park lumberyard, the largest of its kind in the Inland Northwest.”

Their dark business suits were quite different from the tuxes they’d worn in the photo of the Laceys’ New Year’s Eve party, but she recognized them in an instant. Con, Frank, and the man who’d stood on the steps looking down at the young housemaid, the man whose name on the back of the photo had been smudged into obscurity.

A date had been handwritten on the side of the clipping and she tilted her head to read it. June 21, 1921. Six months before Anja’s death.

“We gave that old sawmill to the historical society ages ago,” Connor said, coming up behind her. “Getting it there was a bugger.”

“G. T. Hoyt,” she said, turning to him. “George’s grandfather?”

He reddened and held out his hands. “Mom told you. I know, I should have sat you down, explained, but you’ve had so much on your mind, and we needed that land to continue expanding our production—”

“Connor, stop. I don’t care that you bought land from George Hoyt and didn’t tell me. Well, I do care.” But that could wait. She needed to know who G.T. Hoyt was, his role in the company a century ago, and whether he was H.

Get a grip. He’s not gonna know all that.

“Come into my office,” Connor said, away from Steph’s curiosity. He closed the door and gestured to an oak chair, his own chair new and sturdy, the only modern touch in the room other than his phone and computer. A wall-mounted shelf held books and memorabilia, and the autographed baseball on its heavy metal stand. So that’s where it had gone. Good.

Where should she start?

“Sit. You’re making me nervous.”

She was too nervous to sit. She kept her words slow and deliberate as she tried to separate the lines of connection swimming before her eyes. “The photograph in the showroom. The caption says the men with our great-grandfather were Frank Lacey and G.T. Hoyt, and refers to ‘their lumberyard.’ Were they business partners? What do you know about that?”

“Not much. Lacey managed the sawmill the Great Northern built to supply ties to the railroad. You know, the one downriver that became the Superfund site. They bought timber from McCaskill, and I think Lacey invested in the company for a while.”

“What about Hoyt?” she asked. “What did he have to do with McCaskill Land and Lumber?”

“Not sure I ever knew.” He opened a desk drawer. “A volunteer with the historical society put together a history of the company when we donated the old mill and other equipment, and a bunch of photographs and papers. I’ve got it here somewhere.”

As he flipped through the hanging files, a metallic glint in the bottom of the drawer caught her eye. A revolver. Their dad’s old .38? Connor slammed the drawer shut. Crossed the room to a green three-drawer metal cabinet. Opened and closed the first two drawers, then crouched to flip through the lower drawer.

“Con bought Lacey out at some point,” he said. “Obviously. And if Hoyt was an investor, that was short-lived, too. Why does it matter now?”

“It matters,” she said. “When matters.” She alternately clenched her fists and flexed her fingers. Finally, Connor plucked out a file. Sarah stood next to him as he laid the file on his desk and opened it to the typed summary of the company’s history. So much she didn’t know.

She needed to know.

She also needed reading glasses. The print was too old, too indistinct, the onion skin paper brittle.

Connor dragged a finger down the page. “Here. ‘In the 1920s, Cornelius McCaskill consolidated his ownership, renaming the company McCaskill Land and Lumber.’ That’s all it says. Nothing about Hoyt or Lacey.”

“Do you have the sale documents? I need to know when he bought them out.” She already knew, from Caro’s journal, that Lacey cashed out and the family left the area because of Ellen’s distress over Anja’s death. If Hoyt sold his interest to Con near the time Caro wrote about their debate over how to deal with H, then she could safely conclude that H stood for G.T. Hoyt.

Then what? Would that knowledge alone satisfy the ghost of Anja Sundstrom? What good would come of telling George that his ancestor had been a predator who drove a young immigrant girl to her death a century ago?

She’d figure out what to do about that later. She’d lay it out for the family and they’d decide together. No more secrets.

“Yes. They’re all here.” Connor closed the file and laid his big hand on the cover. “Sarah, I