“Yes, really.” Nan chuckled. “They take pride in their work.” Just then she looked up and caught sight of the gardener, glaring at them, and she hopped to her feet and called him over.
He looked at her in surprise, then looked left, then looked right, but not seeing anybody else she could possibly be talking to, he crossed the grass to reach her.
Doreen stared at him with barely concealed resentment. How come it was okay for him to walk on the grass but not for me?
But then Nan held up one of the little metal plates, asking, “Isn’t this your brother, Frank’s, work?”
Fred looked at it, turned it over, and said, “It looks like it. Yeah, why?” And he turned his suspicious gaze on Doreen.
She gave him a bland smile back.
“No reason,” Nan said.
He looked at the second label, turned it over, nodded, and said, “I think they are Frank’s work. But they’re not normally loose like this.” He looked at Doreen. “I suppose you found them.” The accusation in his tone was quite clear.
Mugs stood, not liking Fred’s tone of voice, and he barked. Doreen reached a hand down but accidentally hit the table. The teacups bounced and the tea sloshed. Thaddeus half flew to the edge of the table and tried to peck away to get his metal pieces back again.
The gardener backed up and said, “Dirty animals.” He tossed the two metal pieces at Nan. “Keep them. Frank has lots.” And, with a final glare, he left.
Nan sat down, trying to calm Thaddeus. She gave him one of the metal plates, which he immediately brought back to Doreen.
“Oh, dear, he feels very strongly about that, doesn’t he?” Nan said. She looked at the gardener, who raced away. “And so does he, apparently.”
Doreen watched as the gardener retreated. His footsteps were faster than necessary, as if he couldn’t wait to get away from them. But she didn’t think it had anything to do with her “dirty” animals.
Chapter 5
Thursday Noon …
Doreen reached for one of the metal tags. “Other numbers are on here too.”
“Sure,” Nan said, “he used to keep a ledger of the tools he sold.”
“What kind of tools did he make?”
“Technically the wooden handles to the otherwise metal tools. It wasn’t much of a business, but he was really proud of these, and they were attached to various hammers and sledgehammers and things.”
“Huh, so he made just the handles?”
“Don’t forget, dear. Back then it wasn’t like you could turn around and get a handle from China on any given day.”
“Any idea how old these are?”
“Oh my,” Nan said. She pressed her fingers to her lips to hide her smile and stared at Doreen.
Doreen glared at her. “Now what?”
“Remember that memory of yours? These are dates, honey.”
Doreen stared down at the numbers on the tin piece and then groaned. “Mine is much harder to read. I didn’t see that. Okay, but they’re what? Twenty years old then?”
“Sure, and, yes, you could have bought stock plastic or wooden replacement handles back then, but he was trying for a small business where he could custom make stuff like that.”
“Interesting. So Frank used to repair tools as well as make handles?”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Nan said. “Now, the name of his business was something funny. I can’t remember for sure. A weird name, like, Kelowna Tool Repair or something.”
Doreen thought privately nothing was funny about that. It said where to find the business and what the business was all about, so it wasn’t a bad commercial name. “I might be able to look it up.”
“Oh, do that,” Nan said with a handclap and a bright smile. “Maybe we’ll find something exciting behind it all.”
“Maybe,” Doreen said cautiously, “but I don’t know what that could be.”
“Maybe not. On your way home, maybe walk on the far side of the creek, and see if you can come up with anything else around the same spot.”
“I can’t go home on that side now. I need to stay on my side of the creek to avoid the rising water.”
“Of course, the water level is quite a bit higher now, isn’t it?”
“It is, but still no water is running out of the sump pump hoses.”
“Perfect,” Nan said. “The ground water hasn’t soaked that far from the creek, so it’s not putting the basement in any danger.”
Every time she heard “water, basement, and danger,” it frayed Doreen’s nerves, and her blood ran cold. The last thing she wanted to consider was her basement flooding. But the basement flooding now versus the basement flooding when full of very expensive antiques were completely different stories. That Nan had kept those antiques down there all those years when they could have been destroyed still gave Doreen nightmares.
“Let me not forget the vegetables,” Nan said. She hopped up and raced into her little suite. She returned a moment later with a large wicker basket and placed it on the table. “Now tell me. Is there anything here you would like? Other than these zucchinis?” she asked, and she pulled out zucchini after zucchini after zucchini.
“They’re all zucchini?” Doreen asked.
“Yes. These came from the grocery store,” Nan said. “Somebody bought too many and brought them in.”
“Right, because it’s not that time of year for these to be ready in our local gardens yet.”
“Nope, not yet. End of July or August. Greenhouses of course would be earlier.” Then Nan pulled a few more items from the basket. “But here we have tomatoes and early salad greens.”
“Early salad greens I can definitely use,” Doreen said. “I’ll take one zucchini, but I can’t use four or five.”
“Are you sure, dear?”
“I’m sure,” she said. “One stir-fry is more than I can handle.”
“I suppose I could make zucchini bread,” Nan said with a smile. “When I have them done, you can come down and have a slice or two.”
“That sounds like the best way to make use of these,” Doreen said. “I do love your zucchini bread.”
Then Nan brought out some white onions, green onions, tomatoes, and radishes. “The tomatoes aren’t mine,” she said, “but somehow they ended up in this basket.” She stared at the basket as if completely confused on that part.
Doreen smiled. “I’ll be happy to take the other vegetables.”
With that, Nan walked back into her little suite and brought out a paper bag in which she carefully packaged some of the vegetables for Doreen. “You should probably go home and research Frank’s company,” Nan said in a low tone.
“Why is that?” Doreen asked, as she finished her tea and the last bite of her cookie. She stared down at her empty plate in disbelief. “I can’t believe I ate that whole cookie.”
“I warned you,” Nan said. “They’re deadly.”
“They’re more than deadly,” Doreen said. “Each one is huge.”
“But there’s nothing like a cookie. When you’re having it with something like a cup of tea, it’s even more special.”