“Understandable,” Felipe replied, setting the boxes of vegetables, meat, and eggs on the counter. “Argos was far more upset that you weren’t here.”
The innkeeper playfully glared at the dog as his tail thumped against the floor. “Did you act like you were starving while I was gone? I fed you before I left. Oh shoot, I hope you all helped yourself to something in the pantry. In all the hubbub, I completely forgot about breakfast. I don’t get many guests anymore, and I’ve lived alone so long that I revert back to my bachelor ways.”
“We made do.”
“Good. I’ll make it up to you and whip up something for lunch.”
A smile crossed the other man’s lips as he pulled the vegetables out of the crates and stacked them on the counter. While it wasn’t as strong as it had been that morning, the gnawing in Felipe’s gut had returned, and the smell of the wrapped parcels of meat from the butcher was going straight to his head. He didn’t want to be in the room when he started cooking them or when he found the money in the larder where the ham had been. Fleeing seemed the safest option, but he needed to speak to Mr. Allen before he decided their next move.
“Before you start cooking, may I have a word with you?”
“About?” the innkeeper asked without looking up from the crate of cans.
“The Jarngrens.” Mr. Allen’s hands stilled a moment too long. “You seemed very keen to get us out of town last night to keep them from realizing Oliver is Stephen’s son. I would like to know why nowthat, that ship has sailed.”
“What do you mean?”
“Willard Jarngren sent this.”
Putting the glass to his eye, Mr. Allen read the note and shook his head. “That one is too smart for his own good. It’s no wonder they don’t let him out in public unsupervised.”
“Do you think he could have shoved Oliver into the woods? I need to know if we can trust him.”
A laugh escaped Mr. Allen’s lips as he shook his head and piled fresh eggs into a bowl on the counter. “Will is a wily one. He might have pushed Oliver to prove a theory, or he might have overheard something or realized it on his own. Either way, I wouldn’t trust any of them. The Jarngrens are trouble.”
“You keep saying that, but what does that mean? Is it their money and influence over the town or something more? Oliver’s life is at stake, and we’re stuck in this godforsaken place until the boat comes in.”Ifit comes in. He didn’t want to think about what that might mean for them. Felipe’s chest tightened as the tether pulled taut beneath his heart. “Mr. Allen, I nearly lost Oliver yesterday, and I can’t risk having anything like that happen again. If there’s something you aren’t telling us, now isn’t the time for secrets.”
Sighing, Mr. Allen turned and leaned back against the counter, suddenly looking far older than his fifty-odd years. As he rubbed the scar near his eye, Argos butted his wide head against his leg until his owner pet him and let out a tight breath.
“Inspector Galvan, I’m not trying to keep secrets. I just didn’t want to speak ill of the boy’s family any more than I had to.”
“The boy is a grown man.”
“I know, but family’s a funny thing. Learning all that stuff about Joanna and Stephen was a lot to take in or believe, and after the way he reacted to the horse quilt, I wasn’t ready to give him more to be upset about.” Mr. Allen shook his head and plunked the cans into the cabinet next to the stove. “There are things I learned about my father after his death that I wish I never knew. I was only trying to protecthim if I could. It wasn’t as if he needed to know any of that if he was leaving. That’s how Joanna would have wanted it.”
“Joanna’s probably long dead, and Oliver doesn’t need protecting.”
“Yet you’re the one asking, not him,” Mr. Allen replied, giving Felipe a hard look.
He held the man’s gaze for a long moment and hated how clearly he saw him. The truth was he did want to soften the blow for Oliver if the Jarngrens were horrible people. No one had been able to shelter him, but he had made certain to do it for Teresa. And he would do it for Oliver if he could. While his family had believed lessons needed to be learned through pain, he disagreed. Pain might be a good teacher, but it left scars that made everything else harder. Joy came with guilt. Comfort came with the fear that it could all be taken away in an instant. Living came with the constant awareness that he deserved to be punished for mistakes he would never fault others for. Felipe had decided years ago that he would do everything in his power to keep those he cared about from experiencing that kind of pain. If that meant keeping things from Oliver that might deeply hurt him, then so be it.
“You’re right, and if you want to protect him as you promised his mother, you need to help me do that. Tell me what it is about the Jarngrens that makes them so untrustworthy.”
Mr. Allen nodded as he grabbed a handful of potatoes from the bag near the door and plopped them onto the table along with a knife. “Peel these while I talk, inspector.”
Settling at the table, Felipe palmed the potato and turned the small, dull knife over in his hand. It had been quite a few years since he had peeled vegetables in someone’s kitchen, but a knife was a knife. As he slipped the blade beneath the potato’s skin, he nodded for Mr. Allen to continue.
“You already know about the Jarngrens’ ties to the mayor and the sheriff. Daphne Stills has a head for business and manipulation, but even if she didn’t, the Jarngrens founded Aldorhaven, their house looms large over all of us. The Eklands and Hogarths might want toovershadow them, but they can’t as they rely upon the Jarngrens for their business’s success. The Stills and Jarngrens don’t advertise it, but they have a large stake in the mill as well. More importantly, they deal with the Dysterwood, and any raw materials that come out of it can only be collected with Daphne Stills’s permission now that she is the matriarch of the Jarngren family. The ore and lumber coming out of the Dysterwood is supposedly a reward from the Lady for their tending of the land. If the Eklands or Hogarths cross them or someone interferes with the Jarngrens, they could withhold the wood and iron. If they did, the mill and forge would close, and the rest of the town would collapse. As you might have noticed, we have no farms in town, and our only major exports are iron and paper. We’re all reliant upon them.”
“Didn’t someone say the iron and logs aren’t coming as often?” Felipe asked as Mr. Allen sliced celery directly into a pot.
The other man nodded with a sigh. “There’s been a lot of talk lately about the iron slowing, though the foremen try to shut that kind of thing down. Some people think the Jarngrens are cursed, though they’ll never say it to their faces, and the lack of iron and wood is because of them.”
“Apparently, the younger Mr. Hughes said as much to Oliver and Miss Jones.”
“John Jr. would, and he isn’t wrong. I came back to town not long before Lars Jarngren, Stephen’s father and Oliver’s grandfather, died, and ever since, the Jarngrens have been dying right and left.”
“Families can have a rash of bad luck.”
