She pinched the excess flesh at my waist. “But only a tiny bit of this,” she laughed.
I blushed. I’ve always had trouble putting on weight.
“Come along, Raymond,” she said. “Meet the girls.
“I’m not…” She shushed me with a glance, first at me, then more pointedly at Mother. They were all complicit. Enablers. Squelching a sigh, I followed Mrs. Montoya to the card table. A woman sat at each of the flat edges of the stop sign shaped table, except for two empty seats. Clearly, Mrs. Montoya’s and Mother’s.
“You know Dee Garfield,” Maria Montoya said. Dee grunted, and I nodded. “And this is Paisley Jones, from the house catty-corner across the street.”
“Hi there, Raymond,” the blond woman giggled. She’d clearly been a red-head once, but the color had faded from her hair. I could tell right away I would like her.
“And this is Donna Trueblood,” Maria said. The tall, well endowed, once upon a time brunette nodded a greeting.
“I live across the street.” Donna gestured toward the corner of Miner Drive, and I realized that, except for Dee Garfield, these old women all shared the corner. They probably had done so for the thirty-seven years I’d been gone.
“Come on, sit here,” Paisley said in her wisp of a voice. She patted the chair next to her, and somewhat opposite Dee. “This used to be Jane’s place, but she has other things on her mind.”
As I slid into the seat between her and Maria, I glanced at my mom. Indeed, she did have something else on her mind… and in her hands. Somebody had brought along a set of knitting needles and a skein of white yarn. Mother occupied her restless fingers by rolling the yarn rhythmically into a ball. A wicker basket with a blue cloth interior rested on the floor at her feet. The one she’d had at the river, I surmised. I felt my shoulder go up, my head cock to the side, and the dimple in my cheek deepen. “I didn’t know you could knit, Mother.”
“Well, of course, Raymond.” She spared only a glance, then dropped her gaze back to the yarn. Since when, I wondered? Since Miss Marple took up residence in her brain?
My attention turned back to the table as each woman drew a deck of cards out of her purse. Paisley pushed Mother’s deck across to me with a smile. “You might as well have these,” she said. I opened the well worn pack and dumped the deck into my palm. Cats. All over them.
“They are… were… hers.” Donna Trueblood nodded toward my mom. “But it doesn’t look like she’ll need them any time soon.”
Maria kicked her under the table, and opened her eyes wide, eyebrows high, angry mom style. Behave, the look meant.
“Well,” Paisley added, oblivious to the kick. “Jane won’t be needing them. She’s decided to knit, instead of play.” Her statement earned her another stern glare from Maria.
After much grumbling, and card-shuffling, each lady finally laid out a line of cards on the table. Ah, I realized. Solitaire. I’d heard of double, but quintuple Solitaire? And then they began playing. But solo. Each played her own hand. They gathered together for companionship, I realized. Slowly, I laid out my own hand. It’d been a long time since I played.
Several minutes into the game, I heard a quiet clearing of a throat. “Mmm-kkkhmm,” Mother said.
All eyes turned.
“Dee, dear.” Mother’s hands had stilled on the yarn.
“Yes?” Dee paled nearly as white as the yarn in my mother’s hands.
“Tell us about Jennifer.”
“I—I don’t know what you mean!” Dee shoved her chair back, and began to rise. Donna took hold of Dee’s arm. Preventing her flight, I wondered? Or supporting her?
Dee sank back into the chair and dropped her face into her hands. Visible trembles wracked her body, but I didn’t hear her cry. After some moments, she lifted her head. Fear was written across her features, her eyes large, and ringed with dark circles. I should have seen that, I thought. But I hadn’t looked closely until now. She looked accusingly at me, as if I was the one who blamed her granddaughter. It’s not my fault, I thought. I only just got here.
“Jennifer’s a good girl,” she said in a wooden, staccato tone.
Mother pursed her lips, and I could see her piercing eyes focus on her friend. “Dee,” she said. “No one is simply good. I recall a girl who used to work for me as a maid…”
“Yes, yes,” Donna said. “Get to the point, Jane.”
Mother raised an eyebrow at Donna, then turned back to Dee. But it seemed to do the trick, because we were spared what appeared to be the beginning of a Marple moment. Mother had never had a maid.
“Jennifer was at the river,” Mother said. “I saw her leave just as I arrived.”
My eyes widened in surprise. She hadn’t said anything to Lonnie about it. She tilted her head my direction and gave a half nod as if she knew what I was thinking. “I believe it was completely innocent, her being there. If she had been the killer, there’s no way she would have known the body would fetch up just there. And she didn’t act frightened, or worried, or in any way guilt-ridden. So, I don’t believe she even saw the body. But, what I would like to know is, where was she the night before?”
Dee gulped audibly. “She was home all night.”
“You can prove that?”
“I don’t need to,” Dee said. “I’m a light sleeper, and I would have heard her go out.”
“If she went out by the kitchen door?”
“She couldn’t. The portable dishwasher is in front of the door.”
“Well, that isn’t very safe,” I mumbled.
“Quiet, Raymond,” Mother said.
“I think I’ve had enough of this… interrogation,” Dee said. Standing up, she swept her cards into a pile and wrapped a rubber band around them. “Good night, Ladies,” she said. Then, as if pasting on an afterthought, “Raymond.”
She paused at the door, and I thought she would say something. But, she opened it and stepped outside. On the stoop, she spun around and stared at us, her gaze shifting from one of us to another. Finally fixing on Mother, she straightened with conviction. “My granddaughter is innocent,” she said, then slammed the door behind her.
Mother began winding the yarn around the growing ball. “That is yet to be proven.”
Chapter Six
The sun blasted in its normal, desert fashion. I rolled out of bed because no matter which way I turned, I couldn’t escape the light. Mother had given me the twins’ old room. When I’d lived here, we shared the tiny space. Me on one side of a partition bookshelf my dad erected, and them on the other. When I moved away, Emma took over my side. Mom kept it pretty much the same as they’d left it, except to pile boxes in and around their stuff. Emma’s bed was easier to resurrect. Besides, it’d been mine all those years ago. So I dug a path in and shoved stuff over to Earl’s side. Then, I lugged my own bags into the room and got a fresh set of sheets, though how fresh they were was questionable. They had that odd scent of long-unused linens. I don’t wear perfume, so I sprayed the next best thing all over them to cut the smell… deodorant.
Nothing eased the smell on Earl’s side, though I practically emptied my spray-on. A musty odor emanated from a stain on the ceiling and wall. That would have to be fixed, but I’m not good with a trowel and mud. And probably tar on the flat roof?
No matter how you looked at it, though, sheer white curtains and a leaky roof beat a spot on the couch. And a cat.
He waited for me just outside the door. I jumped as his paw flashed out and snagged my sock, leaving a trail of thread an inch long. “Grrr,” I said. It didn’t mean anything to him. He simply hugged the ground, eyes hugely round, and tail flicking savagely. Apparently, he thought I should remain crated in the twins’ room. Or not. Maybe he wanted to play. But ‘cat’ is a foreign language to me. I had better luck communicating with hippos on an African river.
Mother sat at the kitchen table, eating toast and jam. I eyed her hopefully. A quizzical expression crossed her face, then gone again. “Good morning, Raymond
,” she said.
“Mary Sue,” I sighed, sure that just for a second she’d known me. Or maybe she was being obstinate for the sheer joy of it.
She pushed a bread bag my direction. “Have some toast?”
“Sure.” As I dropped two slices of bread into the toaster I glanced at the cat’s bowl. It was full. So, Mother hadn’t yet forgotten she had a cat, and how to feed it. I sat across from her, where I could reach the toaster on the counter and the jam on the table. We sat companionably silent for a few moments, and then she started in with her Marple thing.
“I love a good mystery,” she said.
“Huh-uh,” I said between mouthfuls. “Lonnie said you can’t get involved.” It struck me that this probably wasn’t the first time she’d interfered in a case. Not if the sheriff specifically requested she stay out of it. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to hear about her semi-imaginary escapades. But, I needed to take it up with Emma and Earl. How much hadn’t they told me?
A motion out the window caught my eye. A denim-clad man disappeared behind the Garfield house. “Who was that?” I wondered aloud.
“You remember Mac, of course.”
“That kid who hid out in his house all day.”
“He did more than that, Raymond.” Lowering her eyebrows, Mother threw me a judgmental look over the rim of her teacup. She paused, the cup dangling just in front of her lips.
“How’s that?” I ignored her expression.
“He became a musician.”
I hid my interest. “And that’s why he’s skulking around the backyard?”
She lowered the cup, and sighed. “One can hardly skulk around one’s own backyard.”
I hadn’t realized Mac lived with his mother. So, I wasn’t the only one, I reasoned. My excuse was elder-care. I wondered what his was, but I wasn’t inclined to listen to Mother’s gossip. I changed the subject. “What do we have planned for today?”
“I would like to go to the river,” she said.
“Might not be a good idea.” I rose to gather her dishes and mine. Mother doesn’t have a dishwasher, so I filled the basin and began washing by hand.
“Now, Raymond,” she said in a smoothly innocent tone. “I must. I need to find something I left by the picnic table.”
“What?” I beat the dishes, perhaps harder than I intended.
“My…”
I turned to look at her. She gazed at the tabletop, the cogs clearly turning in her mind. “My basket,” she ended, rather lamely, I thought.
“The one you had last night? With yarn in it?” I didn’t try to hide the skepticism in my voice.
It took a moment for her to respond. “Oh, no. Not that one. Another one. Just like it.”
“Its twin?” I had to take her word for it. She insisted. So, when I finished drying the dishes, I grabbed my baseball cap and followed her out the door.
Fifteen minutes later, I turned off the highway. The park was just north of town, toward Albuquerque. My rental bounced over the broken pavement as we traversed the frontage road. Within minutes, the terrain changed from dusty desert to densely forested bosque. Locally, we use the Spanish term for the strip of trees and swamp along the Rio Grande.
Just before the bridge, I eased the car over a steep embankment and down a rutted trail to the picnic grounds. We pulled up to the table my mother indicated.
“Okay,” I said, as I climbed out of the car. “Where are we supposed to look?” I glanced around, and beneath, the table. Then I moved on to look in the brush. I didn’t know why she wanted the thing, if it really even existed. After a week, it had to be ruined.
The snap of a branch, and a high pitched squeal caught my attention. I spun about just in time to see Mother slide down the other side of an embankment! I sprinted after her. “Crud, crud, crud,” I said as I ran. Then “Mother!” as her gray head dropped out of sight. As I topped the hill, my eyes searched the water for a crazy old lady wearing a Miss Marple bonnet. Luckily, the slope flattened out to an open, sort of beachy area. Dry now, it would be underwater in the rainy season. Mother stood, legs apart and bent at the waist butt high. A large dirt smudge coated the back end of her dress.
“Are you okay?” I called from the crest of the hill.
“Yes, yes,” she said. Straightening, she turned my way and plopped her hat on her head. “I just lost my bonnet.”
“You scared the Dickens out of me!” I stalked toward her. The bank crumbled from under me, and I slid on my butt, stopping at her feet. I stood, shakily, and bent to pick up my hat.
“What are you two doing out here?” A man’s baritone voice echoed from the concrete abutments under the bridge.
I spun about to face Lonnie Zonnie. “Um. I lost my hat.”
He slid down the bank, dust billowing from under his boots. He stopped next to me and beat the dust off his thighs. Leave it to him to have balance. My heart jolted as he picked up the hat that still rested at my feet.
“You alright?” He grinned broadly.
“Sure, Lonnie. I like to slide down hills on my butt.” I swiped the dirt that, judging from my mother’s backside, clung to the seat of my pants. What was it with this man and my butt? My heart raced. For some reason, he made me nervous. Probably because he’d seen my derriere in the buff, and now covered with dust.
“So, I ask again. What are you doing here?” He held out my hat. I snatched it, and slammed it hard on my head.
I glared at Mother. “Apparently, NOT looking for missing picnic baskets.”
She paced to and fro along the bank. “This is where I found her.” She pointed to an eddy carved out under the bridge. Branches and garbage clogged what would ordinarily be a thin outlet between the abutment and the shore.
“Yep, that’s where we pulled her out,” Lonnie said.
“Wait,” I said. “Where was Mother in all this?”
“Right about where you’re standing,” Lonnie said. I looked at my feet, then back at him. He’d moved over to Mother’s side and together, they looked in the deep pool of stagnating water and debris. “Laying right there. Passed out cold.”
“Not passed out,” Mother argued. “I had one of my spells.”
“Oh, so that’s what you call them.” He jested with a straight face.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she picked up a stick, and poked around in the water.
“What are you looking for, Mother?” I pushed through some shrubs, and wrinkled my nose as I got a whiff of the rubbish. It almost smelled bad enough for a body to still be hidden amongst the mess. “And don’t say a basket,” I added.
“Of course not,” she said. “It seems that Mrs. Wilson lost a bracelet.”
“Where’d you hear that?” Lonnie picked up his own stick and poked about.
“Oh, here and there,” Mother said.
Here and there? She’d been in Old Timers’ Town for a week, and home not quite twenty four hours. Who could she possibly have heard it from? Certainly not from the women who’d spent last evening in our front room. Maybe? I caught my breath. Maybe she’d learned something while in rehab. Nah. That would mean she knew what she was doing, and I wasn’t about to give her that much credit.
My gaze shifted from the motion they were making of the water to Lonnie’s butt. Yep. Pretty nice. Very fit. And clad in his sheriff’s gear, he looked darn fine. The backseat of his uniform pants clung nicely to his muscular rear end as he moved slightly left, then right, then farther out, swirling the stick in the mud.
He stopped suddenly and turned my way. My face burned. Had he seen me checking out his backside? He grinned, so probably.
“Nothing to see here,” Mother said as she dropped her stick and turned around.
“Yeah,” Lonnie said, smirking. “Nothing to see.”
My face burned more, if that was possible.
“Hey, careful,” he said. “It’s pretty easy to get sunburned round here.” He brushed past me to head up the embankment. A shock of electricity leaped through me at his touch
. He paused, and stared at me. Had he felt it, too?
Mother pushed between us and looked into my face. “Yes, Raymond. You do look a little red.” Then, she glanced back at the shoreline. “Nothing,” she said, quietly. They hadn’t found anything. Not even after dragging much of the detritus ashore. They turned to go, and I fell in behind them, but paused to look back, then ahead to the crest of the hill. “Wait,” I called. They stopped to look back at me. Both wore serious, totally blank expressions on their faces. I must say, Lonnie wore his better.
“Mother, you said you could see her from the picnic table?”
She raised her shoulders a bit, and lifted the corners of her lips in a tiny, self-effacing smile. “Well, perhaps not,” she said. “Maybe I went for a walk. I really don’t remember, Raymond, dear.”
Once again, they turned to go, and I followed slowly behind. Why had she said she could see the body from the table? Could she be protecting Jennifer Garfield? After all, she’d admitted to seeing her at the river the day she’d found the body. I would have to ask her later, when Lonnie wasn’t around. If the girl was guilty, he needed to know she’d been there. If not, then Mother could keep her secret.
When I got to the Kia, Mother was already belted into her seat. Lonnie stood by her open door talking. I mentally kicked myself for missing what they were talking about. I was responsible for her now, and should know.
I slid behind the wheel, waved at Lonnie, and turned the key. Nothing. I tried again. Not even a squeak. Lonnie sauntered over to the front of the car with that infuriating grin of his, popped the hood and took a peak. For a serious dude, he sure smiled a lot. Or maybe I gave him a lot to laugh about. I could just imagine the topics at the Zonnie dinner table these past few evenings. But I couldn’t imagine his significant other. Was he even married? I didn’t want to think about it.
“Well, she’s a goner.” Lonnie dropped the hood, and wiped his hands on a rag I hadn’t seen him get. “Best thing for it, is to call the rental agency.”
“I’ll do it,” Mother said, and stuck out her hand for my phone. I grabbed my stuff out of the car, and the three of us headed to Lonnie’s pickup. He helped mother into the front seat, while I clambered into the back.
It's Marple, Dear Page 4