Fielding mopped the sweat from his receding hairline with a silk handkerchief. Although it was only late May, the weather in the valley was unseasonably warm, and the small, delicately framed woman sitting opposite him added to his discomfort. Her large gray eyes were shadowed in pain from the recent loss of her father. There was an innocence about her, though she was dressed in a tailored business suit. Jonas couldn’t help but remember Sheila Lindstrom as a little girl.
Jonas had practiced law for nearly forty years. Though he could have retired years ago, he hadn’t, and it was times like this that he wished he had left the firm to his younger associates. Looking at Sheila, he felt very old, and the burden of his seventy years seemed great.
He should have become accustomed to grieving relatives long ago, but he hadn’t, especially when the deceased had been one of his friends. Working with family members for the estate was a dismal part of his job, one that he would rather sluff off on a young associate. However, in this case it was impossible. Oliver Lindstrom had been a personal friend of Jonas Fielding. Hence, he had known Oliver’s daughter, Sheila, all of her thirty-one years.
Jonas cleared his throat and wondered why the devil the air-conditioning in the building wasn’t working properly. The offices seemed uncomfortably confining this afternoon. Perhaps it was his imagination. Perhaps dealing with Sheila was the cause of his irritability. He detested this part of his job. To give himself a little space, he stood up and walked over to the window before addressing her.
“I understand that all of this business about your father’s will and the complication with the insurance proceeds is a bit much for you now, because of your father’s death.” Sheila’s small face whitened and she pinched her lower lip between her teeth. “But you have to face facts…”
“What facts?” she asked shakily. Her voice was dry with emotions that wouldn’t leave her. “Are you trying to tell me something I already know—that everyone in this valley, and for that matter the entire Pacific Northwest, thinks my father committed suicide?” Sheila’s hands were shaking. It was difficult but she held onto her poise, holding back the tears that were burning in her throat. “Well, I don’t believe it, not one word of it! I won’t!” Nervously she ran her fingers through the thick, chestnut strands of her hair. “You were a friend of my dad. You don’t think that he actually took his own life, do you?” Round, gray eyes challenged the attorney.
The question Jonas had been avoiding made him squirm against the window ledge. He rubbed his hands on the knees of his suit pants, stalling for time to compose a suitable answer. He wanted to be kind. “I don’t know, Sheila. It seems unlikely…. Oliver had such zest for life…. But, sometimes, when his back is up against the wall, a man will do just about anything to preserve what he has worked for all of his life.”
Sheila closed her eyes. “Then you do believe it,” she whispered, feeling suddenly small and very much alone. “Just like the police and the press. They all think that Dad started the fire himself and got caught in it by mistake…or that he took his own life.”
“No one suggested—”
“No one had to! Just look at the front page of the paper! It’s been four weeks, and the newspapers are still having a field day!”
“Cascade Valley employed a lot of people from around here. Since it’s been closed, unemployment in the valley has doubled. There’s no two ways about it, Sheila. Cascade Valley is news. Big news.” Jonas’s voice was meant to be soothing, but Sheila refused to be comforted.
“I guess I don’t see why everyone seems to think that my father killed himself. Why would he do that—for the money?”
“Who knows?” Jonas shrugged his aging shoulders as he made his way to the desk. “All of the talk—it’s only speculation.”
“It’s slander!” Sheila accused, lifting her regal chin upward defiantly. “My father was a decent, law-abiding citizen, and nothing will change that. He would never…” Her voice cracked with the strain of the past month as she remembered the gentle man who had raised her. Since her mother’s death five years before, Sheila had become closer to her father. The last time she had seen him alive, just last spring vacation, he had been so robust and healthy that Sheila still found it impossible to believe he was gone. When she had visited him, he had been remote and preoccupied, but Sheila had chalked it up to the problems that the winery was experiencing at the time. Although her father had seemed distant, Sheila was sure that no problem at Cascade Valley had been serious enough to cause him to take his life. He had been stronger than that.
Sheila managed to compose herself. There was too much pride in her slender body to allow Jonas Fielding to witness the extent of her grief. “Is there any way I can get the winery operating again?”
Jonas shook his balding head. “I doubt it. The insurance company is balking at paying the settlement because of the possibility of arson.”
Sheila sighed wearily, and her shoulders sagged. Jonas hesitated before continuing. “There’s more to it than that,” he admitted.
Sheila’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
“The papers that were in your father’s safety deposit box—did you read them?”
“No…I was too upset at the time. I brought everything here.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Why?”
“I found the partnership papers among the rest. Did you know that Oliver didn’t own the business alone?”
“Yes.”
The elderly attorney seemed to relax a little. “Have you ever met his business partner?”
“Years ago—when I was very young. But what does Ben Wilder have to do with anything?” she asked, confused by the twist in the conversation and Jonas’s inability to meet her gaze.
“As I understand it, when the business was purchased nearly eighteen years ago, Ben and Oliver were equal partners.” Sheila nodded, remembering the day when her father had made the ecstatic announcement that he had purchased the rustic old winery nestled deep in the eastern foothills of the Cascades. “However, during the course of the last few years, Oliver was forced to borrow money from Wilder Investments…to cover expenses. He put up his share of the business as collateral.”
A tight, uneasy feeling gripped Sheila’s stomach. “You didn’t know about that?”
Jonas shook his head. “All the legal work was done by Ben Wilder’s attorneys. I would have advised Oliver against it.
Sheila suddenly felt guilty as she remembered the course of events over the past five years. “Why exactly did Dad borrow the money?”
Jonas was evasive. He rubbed his palms together. “Several reasons…the economy had been rotten…and then there was a problem with the tampered bottles in Montana. From what I can see in the ledgers, sales have been down for several years.”
“But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?” Sheila whispered. Her throat became dry as she began to understand the reasons for her father’s debt to Ben Wilder. It was her fault! Guilt, in an overpowering rush, settled in her heart.
Jonas dreaded what he had to say. “Your father took out the loan four years ago.”
Sheila
