Mystery of Chad Harris: Fate Delivers Us, Chapter Twenty-Five
 

Madelaine Russell was sitting at the dining room table. The rest of the family hadn’t come down yet, but, she knew that the smells of her breakfast would have them coming soon. He heard a knock on the wall.

" Hi, Mrs. Russell."

" Chad…how nice to see you."

" Well, you know that I live here, and the smells coming through this house are so good…"

" Of course, you’re invited to breakfast, Chad. I wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, you can help me with the final preparations."

" Me? Mrs. Russell, I’m no Chef. I’m from the ‘ I know how to cook well enough to not starve’ club."

" You never mind. Come on and help me."

Chad follows Madelaine into the kitchen.

" The last thing I need done is the fruit for the fruit cups I’m serving with my whip cream this morning. You CAN chop fruit, right?"

" Yes, M’am."

Chad is cutting the fruit while Madelaine attends to the rest of the breakfast.

" Well, that was quite a scene that I came upon last night in this house. I would have never thought I’d see the day where a Crane would be welcome here."

"You mean Ethan."

" Yes, Ethan. "

" He’s not bad, Mrs. Russell. I know the Cranes have a reputation, but, I haven’t seen anything to indicate that Ethan is anything like the rest of them."

" You mean he hasn’t SHOWN that side to you yet. You’re a nice, decent young man, Chad. Stay as far away from the Cranes as possible."

" Mrs. Russell, if you’re telling me to stay away from Ethan, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Living on my own as  I have for so long, the one thing that it’s taught me is that you have to take people, one and one. Until Ethan does something that MAKES me turn away from him, I’m not going to be prejudiced and write him off because of his father and grandfather."

" The Cranes are no good. Period."

Before Chad can say anything,

" I’ll give you an Amen on that, Mama."

They both turned to find TC standing in the doorway to the kitchen. TC comes over and kisses his mother on the cheek. " Good morning, Mama."

" Thank you, Theodore."

" Everything smells great. Eve and the girls will be down in a few minutes. Anything you want me to do?"

" Make sure the table is set. I have to say that I was surprised to see you having dinner with the Cranes last night, Theodore."

" Not my idea, Mama. It was just supposed to be Sam and Grace, Eve and I. But, then Julian and Ivy showed up, and Grace, being the kind heart that she is, invited them."

" Sometimes, Grace is too sweet for her own good."

" Tell me something that I DON’T know. "

Madelaine looked over at Chad, and commented.

" You’re finished already, Chad?"

" Yes, M’am."

" Well, then, take that bowl of fruit into the dining room, and put two scoops into every glass sitting in the middle of the plates."

" Can do."

Once Chad was gone, Madelaine turned to TC, " Maybe my old mind is playing tricks on me Theodore, but, I could have sworn that Mrs. Ivy Crane had bedroom eyes looking at Sam."

TC nearly choked on his orange juice. " Bedroom eyes?"

" I know what I saw, Theodore. " Madelaine arches her eyebrow – an indication that she’s waiting for an answer.

" Poison Ivy IS after Sam. They used to be lovers.. BEFORE he met Grace. And now, she wants him back."

" Sam is a married man. SHE is a married woman, but, none of that stops a Crane. If they see something that they want, they’ll just take it, and don’t give a damn about the consequences."

" You know it, Mama. But, Sam’s resisting her."

" He better. He’s got a real prize in Grace. Only a fool would succumb to woman who has no intentions of leaving the Crane money. Sam better understand that he’s just a stud to her. "

" He does. He is fighting it."

" Good. Now, what about this Ethan Crane being in this house, Theodore."

" Mama", TC sighed, " I’m not saying that I’m all that supportive of Whitney having any contact with the Cranes, but, he’s not dating her, and they are just in social settings. Nothing more. He hasn’t done anything that proves him to be as rotten as Julian and Alistair. When he does, he’ll never be in this house again."

" Fine……..well, you hand me the platters, and we can get breakfast on the table."

" Oh yes.", TC says with a smile, his mouth already watering for the wonderful feast Madelaine has prepared.
 

" Well, I don’t think she liked us. She was very cold.", Ivy commented, taking her morning coffee from Pilar.

" Well, you would know cold, Darling.", Julian piped up from behind the paper.

" She was polite, but, everything else about her was very frigid."

" Who was frigid?", Ethan asked, as he and Gwen entered the Living Room.

" TC Russell’s mother. We met her last night at the Sea Scape."

" You’re right, Mother. She was cold.", Ethan said.

" She definitely didn’t like the thought of a Crane being in Coach Russell’s house.", Gwen commented.

" You know what made me so uncomfortable."

All at once, Ethan, Gwen and Julian responded with, " her eyes."

" YES! Her eyes. They.."

" See through you like you’re glass.", Gwen volunteered.

" Send a chill down your spine.", Ethan commented.

" Make you feel as if you’re on trial.", Julian piped in. "Has been ever since I was younger than Ethan. HER husband WORKED for my father, and that woman has never shown an ounce of respect or fear of the Cranes. Even when I was young, her eyes were ice. Like from some bad horror movie. "

Ivy notices Pilar shaking her head.

" Pilar, is there something you would like to say?", Ivy asks.

" These are not my experiences with Madelaine Russell. When she lived here, she was nothing but warm and loving towards my family. She has offered to host my family in her homes, and we’ve been to her home several times. I find her to be very generous. I have never seen this coldness."

" Then you’re lucky, PEE-lar, because the woman is so much of an Ice Queen that she makes Ivy look hot. ", Julian comments as he crawls back into his Wall Street Journal.
 

" Well, Inez, good morning.", George Alexopoulos says, bringing in two large bakery boxes. " Breakfast", he says, waving them in her face.

" George, you know I work the night shift. WHY are you here?"

" Finished up my case and took the red-eye. I didn’t even kiss my wife this morning, I came straight from the airport, to the bakery to you."

" Chad."

" Yes, Chad."

" You said it was good, Inez."

" I always live up to the hype, George.", Inez laughs. " Let me put on some coffee, and you slice up whatever fruit I have in there, and over breakfast,I’ll tell you what I found."

After Inez put on the coffee, while George was fixing things, Inez went to get the files that she had for George.

In no time, their breakfast, complimented with scrambled eggs with herbs – a George specialty, was on the table.

" So, Inez, what did you find out?"

" Well, you gave me the assignment of those two people, Orville Perkins and Crystal Harris."

" Yep. "

" Well, you’re in luck, buddy boy. Orville Perkins was audited a little after the timeframe that you asked for. Back then, the IRS was doing five year audits. So, the first year of his five years, was right in the timeframe that you were looking for."

" What did you find?"

" At first, nothing? Nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing that was constant in his life was the music. He listed a secondary job as a bartender. THAT stayed the same. What changed, though, was that he had several main jobs, none lasting more than a year."

" People change jobs, Inez."

" Not back then, they didn’t. The economy was totally different, and the only people who changed jobs like that were construction folks. Most everyone else? Stayed put. "

" So, I took down the names of the companies, and the thing is, they were all in different areas. I then began investigating a little further. These companies have one thing in common?"

" What’s that?"

" They were all subdivisions of the SAME huge conglomorate. The same parent company. I then looked at your friend Crystal Harris. One tax return. The agency used to keep the first return they ever got from someone. And, the thing is, SHE was paid out of one of the companies that Orville was paid from."

" Are you sure?"

" Yes."

" Who is the parent company, Inez?"

" Crane Industries."