Reunion and Revenge Read online

  Also by Karen Musser Nortman

  The Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries

  Bats and Bones

  The Blue Coyote

  Peete and Repeat

  The Lady of the Lake

  To Cache a Killer

  A Campy Christmas

  The Space Invader

  Real Actors, Not People

  We Are NOT Buying a Camper! (a prequel)

  The Time Travel Trailer Series

  The Time Travel Trailer

  Trailer on the Fly

  Trailer, Get Your Kicks!

  Happy Camper Tips and Recipes

  Reunion and Revenge

  by Karen Musser Nortman

  Cover Art by Ace Book Covers

  Copyright © 2018 by Karen Musser Nortman. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Dedicated to my ‘younger aunts,’ Carol Mast, Maxine Musser, and Lillian Jensen. You were our heroes and prime examples of strong, independent women.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Thank You

  Other Books by the Author

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Lillian Garrett shifted her bag of groceries to her purse arm and grabbed her mail from the barn-shaped mailbox on the gate post. Mostly junk mail, a couple of catalogs, and an envelope from Minnesota. That piqued her interest. Maybe from her sister Carol, who didn’t write often.

  Inside her neat Cape Cod, she headed for the kitchen and dumped everything on the counter. She opened the letter and pulled out a homemade flyer. It wasn’t from Carol; Carol was a better speller.

  JACOBSEN FAMILY RENUION

  JUNE 22, 2018

  THE BOB AND CAROL HARSTAD FARM

  CASTLEROLL, MN

  Friday night: Potluck Supper.

  Bring table servise and one dish to share. Meat provided.

  Saurday morning: Castleroll Midsummer Parade, 9 am, Main street

  Saturday afternoon, 1 pm—Tour of old Jacobsen Antenna plant and Castleroll High School

  Saturday evening, 5:30 pm—catered dinner at the Castleroll VFW

  Sunday morning, 10 am—church services at St. John Lutheran Church

  Sunday noon—Midsummer Picnic in the Park (tickets available $10 per person)

  RSVP to Annie Harstad-Hansen by May 1

  Lil called her older sister Maxine in Denver. “Max? Did you get Annie’s invitation to the family reunion?”

  “I haven’t picked up my mail yet today. And how are you?”

  Lil was used to ignoring her sister’s sarcasm. After all, she’d had over seventy years of practice. “Fine, fine. Well, if you can believe it, they’re getting up a reunion for the weekend of June 15.”

  “Castleroll?” Max asked.

  “Yes. Bob and Carol’s. Well, part of it anyway. I haven’t been back there for years.”

  “Annie’s wedding, I think, was the last time we went.”

  Lil shuddered. “Not a pleasant memory. I mean, the wedding was fine, but some of the guests weren’t very friendly.”

  “‘Some wounds run too deep for the healing.’”

  “Who’s that—Shakespeare?”

  Max laughed. “Harry Potter—J. K. Rowling. So are you thinking about going to this shindig?”

  “I want to. It would be a chance to see a lot of people in the family who don’t really have room for us to come visit. For one thing, I’m worried about Sharon’s granddaughter, Chelsea, and the trouble she’s gotten into. Someone needs to talk some sense into her, and you know it won’t be Sharon. I wonder how Carol’s doing after her surgery. And it would be a good chance to decide what to do with Dad’s memorial money. It’s been three years.”

  “Good points. Listen, let me check my calendar and get my mail. I’ll call you back tonight.”

  “Sure,” Lil said. “I have to put my groceries away, anyway. Call me after 7:00 because I have dance class at 5:00.”

  “Dance class? Are you kidding?”

  “Nope. I’m taking a tap dance class. Always wanted to.”

  “You’ll break your leg. Talk to you later.” Max was gone.

  Max called back that evening. “Looks—um—interesting. But I thought you wanted to go to Pennsylvania this summer to see Terry and his kids.”

  “We could do that this fall. You don’t sound very fired up.”

  “Actually, I am. I know how to handle those people now. It just took me by surprise at the wedding.”

  “Most of the people who worked for Dad are retired now, one way or another. Surely they aren’t still mad at us. I can drive.”

  “Like I have a death wish. We’ll make a time table later, but I’ll swing down and pick you up. Maybe go a little early and make some stops along the way.”

  Later, Lil wondered what Max meant by ‘handling’ people. Their father, George Jacobsen, had owned an antenna manufacturing company headquartered in Castleroll. It thrived during the Fifties and Sixties, but faltered in the Seventies as cable television moved in. George sold the company in 1977 to a conglomerate, which then closed the plant and moved operations to Tennessee, leaving many Castleroll residents without jobs. Jacobsen Antennas had been the town’s largest employer by far. By that time, Lil had long been married and moved to Kansas, and Max was a professor of botany in a Colorado small college.

  When the sisters returned to their hometown ten years earlier for their niece Annie’s wedding—about thirty years after the plant closing—guests’ reactions ranged from quiet snubbing to outright insults. Why would those people come to the wedding if they were still mad at the family? Just for the free food and drinks? It boggled the mind. Lil asked Carol afterwards how she could stand to stay in the area. Carol admitted that she stayed in her husband’s shadow and made sure to strengthen her connections with his family whenever possible.

  “Besides, our close friends don’t blame me at all.”

  “As they shouldn’t,” Max had said. “None of us were involved in the company.”

  “They don’t blame you. Most people have put it behind them. It’s the people who don’t know us well and were really hurt by the closing who can’t let it go. It’s just that so many of the family being in town for this wedding has reminded people.”

  Over the next couple of months, Lil and Max planned their trip back to Minnesota for the reunion. Their nephew Grant, their brother Donnie’s son, lived in Grand Island, Nebraska, so they would make an overnight stop there. Max called Grant and reported to Lil that he had no plans to go to the reunion.

  “He said they’ll be busy with summer softball. I asked about spending the night, and he said that their hide-abed has a broken spring, but I assured him we would be fine with all that.”

  “Good,” Lil said. “I was sorry we missed him when we tried to stop last year on our Wisconsin trip. I didn’t know someone that old could be in the National Guard.
He must be fifty. Is he still doing that?”

  “He didn’t mention it.”

  “I’m putting together a scrapbook of family pictures to take along. I’m using a Disney theme.”

  “How appropriate,” Max said.

  Lil felt it was unfair and unnecessary sarcasm. Max never did appreciate Lil’s creativity.

  Lil scheduled a mani-pedi and a touch-up on her blonde bouffant hairstyle for the week before the trip. After several shopping expeditions, she found the perfect matching lavender shirt and pants for the Friday night potluck. Lightweight—Minnesota summers could be hot—but some protection against the giant mosquitos. She had a cute denim jumper that would be great for the Saturday events, and still needed to make a decision on her Sunday clothes.

  She loved planning for trips. She and her husband Earl travelled often during their marriage, but he had died from cancer eighteen years before. For a while she moped around home until Max suggested a road trip to the Carolinas.

  For many people, that trip would have been the last time they ever traveled with Maxine. Max was the oldest of Lil’s siblings—headstrong and bossy. They fought most of the trip. But by the time they returned home, Lil realized she felt more alive than any time since Earl died. At that point, she decided that these trips were doable if she just ignored Max’s most annoying habits. Lil did love her sister, even if she often didn’t like her much. So they still took trips, they still argued, and most of the time, Lil was able to blow off Max’s comments. Most of the time.

  The second week in June, Max pulled in to Lil’s driveway in her 1950 Studebaker Starlight coupe—bright red. Max bought the car when she retired and had it pristinely restored. The sisters used it for jaunts around the country to visit friends and family.

  Max opened her door and was nearly flattened as a hairy, red projectile burst from the back seat. “Rosie!” Max shouted.

  The 70-pound Irish Setter bounded to Lil, and leaped up, paws on Lil’s shoulders and tongue hanging in her face. It was all Lil could do to keep her balance, but she laughed with delight. She gently removed Rosie’s paws and let her down to the ground, scratching the dog’s head. “I’m glad to see you, too, girl.”

  Max emerged from the car, brushed back her short gray hair, and straightened her brown tunic top. Lil thought she needed to wear more color, but Max stubbornly stuck with her neutral classics. She always said she was too old for ‘fads.’

  Lil hugged her sister. “Come in and take a short break before we leave. I have iced tea and fresh snickerdoodles.”

  “I do need to use the bathroom. Rosie! Come on!”

  The dog was burrowing under a bush along the driveway. Max shook her head. “The only reason that dog is still alive is that she’s beautiful. I swear she doesn’t have a brain in her head.”

  “She’s very friendly, too,” Lil pointed out. “That’s a plus.”

  “Oh, don’t I know. Her friendliness is why half my neighborhood would like to see me evicted.”

  A half-hour later, Lil placed her rolling suitcase and matching tote in the large trunk next to Max’s beat-up duffel bag. She smiled to herself at Max’s refusal to give up anything that had even a modicum of use left. Max traveled often and could well afford a matched set of luggage but clung to her old duffel.

  From Kansas, they headed north to Interstate 80 and then east toward Grand Island. Rosie had the entire back seat, and after trying to pace in the confined space the first ten minutes and bestowing her hot breath on the women, she finally collapsed on the seat and went to sleep.

  “I wonder what our reception will be in town,” Lil said, when things quieted down. “Is Donnie coming?”

  Max grimaced. “Annie says he is. I just hope he doesn’t stir things up. He’s never been willing to let the past go either.”

  Grant and his wife welcomed them warmly, if not over-enthusiastically. The hide-a-bed was certainly lacking in creature comforts, but the women made it through the night.

  When they discussed the reunion at supper, Grant said, “We are busy with the kids’ activities, but truth be told, I have no desire to go back there. I never lived there, and people were so rude when we went to Annie’s wedding. I had nothing to do with Jacobsen Antenna—it closed before I was born.”

  Lil patted his hand. “I know, dear. They are rather unfair about it.”

  “Rather unfair? That’s pretty mild, Aunt Lil. Besides, my dad gets so mad when the subject comes up that we really don’t want to be around him.”

  As they left in the morning, Mrs. Grant (Lil could never remember her first name—Alicia or Alyssa or something?) said “Stop back any time.” But she kept her hands behind her back. Perhaps her fingers were crossed.

  Max suggested a stop at Lake Okoboji in Iowa on their way to Minnesota.

  “Since we don’t have any relatives in the area, I found a little local motel that isn’t too expensive and allows pets.”

  And it was cheap, apparently because they weren’t paying for a ‘free’ breakfast, cable TV, or clean sheets. Lil made sure her suitcase and shoes were off the floor in case some of the bugs decided to explore, although Rosie was good at chasing them back to their lairs.

  As they left the next morning, Lil said, “At least when we get to Castleroll and stay with Carol, we can be assured of clean beds.”

  Max rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t that bad. Sometimes I think you have OCD.”

  Castleroll, Minnesota, was founded in the 1800s by German settlers and named, understandably, Germantown. The Germans were soon outnumbered by the Norwegians and Swedes, who flooded in by the turn of the century. In reaction to the anti-German sentiment during World War I, the city council (two Janssens, a Hultberg, an Amundsen, and a Hermanson) decided to rechristen the town. Long meetings did not result in any kind of agreement until Nils Amundsen stated one Monday that he had been to so many potlucks over the weekend that they ought to name the town Casserole.

  The idea, although intended as a joke, had a great deal of appeal. There was no other town by that name and it reflected the culture of the town rather than that of any particular group. Bjorn Hultberg, however, thought it would make them a laughing stock—why not call the town ‘Blue Plate Special’?— and suggested that the spelling be changed to Castleroll to give the name a little more class. The choice was immensely popular with most of the citizens—Scandinavians, Germans, and even the Poles.

  Chapter Two

  Max and Lil recognized few of the business names on Castleroll’s wide main street. Amid the one and two-story commercial buildings stood the movie theater they remembered, but it appeared to be closed.

  Lil pointed out the corner where the JCPenney store had once been. “Remember, it had those pneumatic tubes that whisked money up to the mezzanine and returned with change? Those fascinated me.”

  “That wasn’t here. That was in Prairie City.”

  “No, it was here.”

  “Your memory’s gone,” Max said.

  Lil gave up and gazed out the window.

  The El Dorado Cafe and the Rivas Beauty Salon indicated that Latino residents had joined the Scandinavians, Germans, and Poles. Max drove slowly down the street, relishing the heads turned in envy at the sight of her sporty car. Once through the downtown, she stepped on the gas and followed the main road out of town to their sister Carol’s house.

  A long, straight lane led back to Carol and Bob’s prosperous farm that had been in Bob’s family for three generations. Southern Minnesota prairie stretched out in all directions from the well-kept farmstead. The old farmhouse had stood since the first generation, although it had been updated numerous times. Carol had removed the paneling and shag carpet when she and Bob married and gone through at least four redos since then. The latest, Carol had told Max on the phone, was the trendy ‘shabby chic.’ Not exactly Max’s cup of tea, but it evidently suited Carol.

  As they pulled up in front of the path to the house, Carol came out sporting a wide smile and a walker. Her
hip replacement the previous winter had developed several complications, resulting in more surgery.

  “You’re here!” she called. “And that adorable car is like a ray of sunshine.”

  Lil hurried up the path to greet her sister, who waited leaning on her walker. Max pulled their bags out of the trunk. She left Lil’s fancy luggage on the ground and, lugging her duffle, went to hug Carol.

  “How’s the hip?” Lil asked. “You’re getting around better than I thought you would be.”

  “Ha! I thought I’d be jumping hurdles by this summer. It’s been a hassle but it’s gradually improving.” Carol beamed at them both. “I’m so glad you guys could make it! Everyone is excited to see you.”

  Max cocked one eyebrow at her. “Everyone?”

  Carol chuckled. “Well…. Let’s go in and put your things in your rooms. I need your help to get things ready for the potluck tonight. Annie organized most of this, but of course she had to work today. Bob’s in the field, so you’ll see him later.”

  Max snagged the regular guest room, decorated rather sedately in gray, beige, and pale yellow, while Lil drew the room usually reserved for the granddaughters. The Disney princess comforter alone would have been enough to nauseate Max.

  They gathered in the kitchen, and Lil ordered Carol, “Give us jobs and the latest gossip.”

  Carol gave her a sideways glance. “Do you even remember anyone? It’s been years since you’ve been here.”

  “Annie’s wedding,” Max said. “No way to forget the bad feeling about the plant closing.”

  Carol tied on a blue-checked apron and leaned on her walker with one hand as she pulled a large yellow bowl from the cupboard. “I’m afraid it’s about to be stirred up again. For one thing, Dutch Schneider is working on his memoir.”