Stillwater by Melissa Lenhardt

Author:Melissa Lenhardt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2015-09-07T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

Tuesday

I

Besides Shirley and Marta, Ellie knew Jane better than anyone else in town. What Ellie knew she had learned secondhand, pieced together from gossip, snatches of conversation when she was a child, and nuggets of information Jane let slip throughout the years.

Jane Maxwell had walked through the front door of 24 River Road in 1947 as the young German bride of Herman Maxwell, president and sole owner of Stillwater National Bank and Mayor of Stillwater for going on thirty years. Jane’s arrival was a shock to the community, not only because she was at least fifty years younger than seventy-two-year-old Herman, but because Herman had long said he would never meet a woman who could hold a candle to his late wife. But Herman was a man, after all, and Jane was beautiful.

If Jane had settled in to the role of mayor’s wife, the town might have embraced her, however grudgingly. Jane was not interested in bridge clubs, community service, and church, though. She wanted to work with Herman at the bank. Mellowed with age and eager to make his young wife happy, Herman agreed. He figured she would find herself out of her depth quickly and decide a life of leisure was not such a bad life after all. Much to his and every man and woman at the bank’s amazement, Jane proved to have a keen financial mind, and, as time went on, her ruthless business sense became apparent. As Herman aged, Jane grew more powerful. When he died in 1965 at ninety without children, having outlived any distant family to speak of, he left everything to Jane. She had been in charge of the bank ever since.

Ellie’s admiration for Jane’s intelligence, independence, and determination was occasionally diminished only by an implacability that Jane masterfully hid behind common sense and practicality. Soft emotions had no place in Jane Maxwell’s life, even for a ten-year-old girl with a dead mother and alcoholic gambler for a father whose fortune was entrusted to her management. Jane had delegated Ellie’s emotional care to Shirley Underwood, Jane’s secretary and mother of Ellie’s best friend, Lisa. It was just as well; Jane terrified Ellie. As Ellie matured, the fear transformed to respect until finally settling into gratitude. Ellie cared what happened to Jane, but Jane was impossible to love.

Ellie pushed a button and a rich two-note bell rang inside the house. Marta opened the door.

“Marta,” Ellie said. She forced herself not to stare at the birthmark on Marta’s cheek. When she first saw the birthmark as a girl, Ellie had asked Marta about it and had received an angry retort in response. For years, Marta and her birthmark and thick German accent had always been the stand-in for the bogeyman in Ellie’s nightmares. Maturity had banished the silly fear, but the birthmark still fascinated Ellie, despite herself.

“Miss Elliot.” Marta was the only person in Stillwater who still called Ellie by her true name.

“How’s Jane feeling?”

Marta closed the door and stood with her hands clasped in front of her.

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