How the case begins
The Hollis orchard has fed three generations and buried two, and in the fall of 1931 it is doing what every farm in the county is doing: arithmetic after supper, in low voices, with the bank's letter on the table. Mr. Crane is coming Friday to talk terms. The farm's answer to the bank has always been the same piece of paper, the deed, free and clear since 1919, kept in the tin box under the stairs with the birth certificates and the war medal. On Monday the tin box holds everything except the deed. Ray Hollis empties it twice on the kitchen table, and then empties it a third time because his hands need something to do. Without the paper, Friday becomes a different kind of conversation. Suspicion, which is cheap this year, lands on the cider buyer from the city, who has been walking the rows all week with a notebook he will not show anyone. But Pearl, the hired girl, who watches everything from the kitchen door, has noticed something nobody else has: Grandmother Hollis has stopped asking when Mr. Crane is coming. As if, for her, that worry ended some days ago.
- 1The Tin Box
- 2The Man in the Rows
- 3Edges and Hearts
- 4The Light Before Dawn
- 5The Week That Cannot Stop
- 6Ivy's Arithmetic
- 7Papa's Word
- 8Nineteen Nineteen
- 9The Old Safe
- 10Friday at the Kitchen Tablebring your clues
Each chapter is a short scene and a puzzle, and every puzzle leaves you one clue. Keep all nine. The finale needs them. Your clues keep themselves on this device.
Prefer pen and paper?
The whole case as one large-print booklet: every chapter and its puzzle, a clue ledger to fill in, and the ending sealed on the last page.
The people of the case
- Grandmother Hollis. Planted half these trees with her late husband. Runs the kitchen, the calendar and the family, though names and mornings slip from her more than they did.
- Ray Hollis. Her grandson, who has the orchard now. Good with trees, honest with money, and this week frightened in a way he will not name at the table.
- Ivy Hollis. Ray's wife. Keeps the accounts and the peace, in that order when she must.
- Mr. Crane. The bank's man, due Friday. Wears the county's most apologetic hat and carries its least apologetic briefcase.
- Leo Fisk. The cider buyer from the city, walking the rows all week with a notebook. Polite, watchful, and exactly the kind of stranger 1931 has taught people to fear.
- Pearl. The hired girl, sixteen, sees everything from the kitchen door. Loves Grandmother Hollis outright, which turns out to matter.