by Lynn Bulock
*
Ben sat at the breakfast bar, milk dribbling off his spoon and back into his cereal bowl when I told him about Dot’s suggestion. “Are you serious about that?”
“Yes, I am. I thought it was a very good idea.” Eight o’clock felt a little early to get defensive, but there it was. I needed coffee and while there was plenty of coffee in the apartment there weren’t any coffee filters. Since I wasn’t about to stoop to using a paper towel, coffee was going to wait until I made a store run.
“No, I’m not putting it down, Mom. I’m just really surprised that you’re suggesting it. I thought you were just going to keep arguing against this. I wasn’t expecting anything like acceptance.” His grin almost made me cry. It felt so good to know that my opinion still mattered that much to him.
“This isn’t total acceptance, but I’m working on it,” I told him, giving him a hug from behind, over the chair. “I just want to make sure you two really, really understand what you’re getting into.”
“Hey, given the example you and Dad have set, you ought to be glad I’m even thinking about marriage.”
“I’d have to agree with you on that one, Ben. I just wish you’d think about it a year or two longer before committing yourself.” Even behind him I could feel the eye roll Ben gave me.
An hour later in the grocery store I tried to juggle the coffee I’d bought at their coffee counter, put the coffee filters into my cart and pull my ringing cell phone out of my purse before it stopped ringing. The Caller ID flashed Hal’s number. “Hi. How’s it going?” The minute the words were out of my mouth I wanted to call them back. It was going horribly how else could it possibly be going? “Ack. Forget I asked.”
“No, that’s all right. It’s reflex, I understand. I won’t even try to answer.” There was a long pause and it felt as though Hal was trying to collect himself before he went on. “Look, could you come over? I need to talk to somebody who doesn’t think I killed anybody, harmed anybody or made a gigantic fool of myself and, well, you’re the only person I could think of.”
I felt like telling him he could have tried his son, but I wasn’t sure that Ben would agree, especially with that proviso about being a fool. By now I was so embedded in this whole mess it was difficult to see a way out. “Sure. Give me twenty minutes to finish up at the grocery store and I’ll come over, okay?”
“Fine. Did you just say that you’re at the grocery store?”
I could see where this was leading, so I didn’t even resist. I tried to remember how much help I’d needed after Dennis died, and the way my Christian Friends group had given me all that help. Maybe I should just treat Hal as I would another group member in the same situation. “I sure am. And I haven’t gone through the checkout line yet. What do you need?”
“Coffee filters. I have no idea where Nicole kept them. And get me a loaf of white bread and a dozen eggs. I mean real eggs and not that egg-whites-in-a-carton stuff.”
“Will do. I’ll be there soon with everything.” Or at least a sack of groceries. I had an idea Hal needed much more than I could provide.
Half an hour later I sat at his kitchen table refreshing my coffee from the grocery store with the fresh stuff he’d brewed using his new coffee filters. At least he could make coffee once he had the filters. “So I’m pretty sure you didn’t call me just to bring you groceries. What did you want to talk about?”
Hal put the coffee back on the warmer and sat down. “Everything. My entire life feels like a train wreck. My parents are at the mall because Mom didn’t bring anything she could wear to a funeral instead of a wedding. My in-laws won’t speak to me because they think I had something to do with their daughter’s death. And and I’m afraid they might be right.”
Well, that made me nearly spit out my coffee. I steadied myself on the edge of his kitchen table and tried to be rational. “What do you mean? I think you’d know one way or another, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, I didn’t do anything to her, I mean physically. It’s just that we sort of had a discussion before she went out with her friends.”
“How serious a discussion? Like, an engagement-ending discussion?”
“I didn’t want it to be. But Nicole started out by asking me what I thought about maybe delaying the wedding a little while. I didn’t react well to the idea. We may have only been engaged since Christmas but we’ve been dating quite a while. And like my parents and hers are so fond of pointing out, I’m not getting any younger. She’d talked about kids and I didn’t want to wait until I’d be playing touch football with a walker.”
The whole picture in my mind was so unattractive that I just set down my coffee and stopped risking it going down the wrong pipe. “So you didn’t discuss why she wanted to delay things, or for how long?”
He shook his head. “No. Things started getting tense after that. She said she just felt overwhelmed. I started ranting on how overwhelmed she’d feel if she told her mom she was canceling a wedding that was supposed to happen in two weeks. We yelled some, didn’t settle anything and she stormed out.”
“Do the police know this?”
“Not exactly.” He took a drink of his own coffee and looked down at the surface of the table and cursed softly. “No, they don’t know any of it. And now I’m afraid it will just make me look worse that I didn’t tell them right away.”
“Maybe so, but I think you still need to tell them. Knowing that Nicole was that upset when she went out with her friends might put a different light on things.”
His brow furrowed. “I don’t think she was upset enough to do anything foolish. Not on purpose, for sure. But she might not have made the best decisions during the evening.”
“That’s why you should tell someone at the sheriff’s department.”
Hal opened his mouth to say something and closed it again when the phone rang. Answering it, he didn’t make any effort to hide his end of the conversation, which seemed to involve credit cards. A few minutes later he hung up and turned to me. “Something’s happened and it’s really weird. At least it’s weird for me. The detective sounded like he hears it all the time.”
I resisted asking him which detective he was talking to. I’d rather not know. So far I didn’t have any real confirmation that Ray was the lead detective. “It sounded like you were talking about credit cards. What’s up?”
“When they were here for me to report Nicole missing, the officer taking the information asked about her credit cards. I gave them a list of the three that I knew about, one joint account and two that were all hers. One of hers has had hits on it last night and today. The detective was calling to verify that I didn’t have access to the account.”
“And you don’t, do you?”
Hal shook his head, looking very confused. “No, but somebody does and they’re buying things at stores less than twenty miles from this house.”
“Did the detective tell you what happens next?” As long as Hal could prove he wasn’t using the card, maybe this meant he’d be less of a suspect in Nicole’s death.
“Next they track down the person who’s been using the card and try to figure out how they got it, or if they even have the actual card. Of course your detective Fernandez told me the same thing they said last time not to go anywhere outside the county without notifying them.”
My heart sank a little to know that Ray was in charge of this case. The last place I wanted to be was between these two men, especially when it involved an issue this serious. I prayed silently that this would resolve quickly. If I’d known then how quickly Ray would have an answer, and where that would lead, I would have been a little more specific with my prayers.
*
Once I left Hal’s house I went home with the rest of my groceries and put everything away, mulling over all the while how I was going to make a phone call. Ben and I spoke briefly before he headed off to talk to one of the managers at the office supply store. He actually wore pressed khakis and a shirt with a collar, making me think
he might get the job. “And while I’m there I’m going to buy a little notebook,” he said, making a goofy face at me. “I’m going to give your suggestion a try for a couple days. Not that I expect I’ll have any big surprises.”
“Oh, yeah? Let me give you two words. Car insurance.” He turned a little pale and lost the funny expression.
“Huh. I guess married people can’t be on their mom’s car insurance, can they?”
“Not exactly. Go online sometime after you get home from your interview and check rates. It won’t be pretty.”
He smiled weakly. “Great. Any other ‘words’ for me?”
“Not yet. Maybe I’ll think of some later.” He left before I came up with any more and once he was gone I started practicing my phone call out loud. Just about the time I’d worked my courage up my cell phone rang. It was Ray, giving me a momentary panic because I was all set to call him.
“Hi. We’ve got to talk,” he said.
“Right. To say that we can’t talk. Or get together, or anything else for a while. Correct?”
The noise he made on his end of the phone made me picture him slowly massaging a temple as if he had a migraine. “That would about cover it. I take it you’ve been talking to your ex again.”
“Yes, and I’m likely to be talking to him at least once a day until things settle down and you decide he had nothing to do with Nicole’s death. Or ” I couldn’t force myself to talk about the other possibility.
“Or we decide that he did. In any case we can’t see each other socially while this investigation goes on. Even if I handed it over to somebody else, which I can’t right now, I’d feel uncomfortable with us going out right now.”
“I understand. I was just about to call you and tell you the same thing. I don’t want to get you in trouble or color your judgment in any way.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that part. I’m hard to sway,” he said.
“I’ve noticed, but we won’t get into that now.”
He sighed. “Will we ever get into it now? Depending on how this ends, I can imagine you not wanting to see me again.”
That sent pain through me in a couple ways, and I knew Ray wanted me to answer right away, but I couldn’t. After a couple of deep, slow breaths I leaned against the wall. “If all you do here is do your job and do it honestly and well, I can’t fault you if things don’t turn out the way I want them to.”
Now it was his turn to stay silent for a while. “We’ll see what you say later, Gracie Lee. I’ll call you when I can, and I promise that anything that I can tell you, I’ll make sure you hear before you have to get information from the media or gossip.”
“I appreciate that. Is there anything you can tell me now?”
“Not much. Only that if you saw that homeless woman slip out of Playa del Sol yesterday, I wish you would have told me. Maybe if I hadn’t been so busy chewing you out for being there you would have been more cooperative, huh?”
“Maybe,” I told him, surprised at how hard it was to see through the tears that gathered. “I’ll miss you, Ray. Know that I’m praying for you.”
“Usually I’d have a smart remark about that, but today I’ll just say thank you.” We said a few more uncomfortable goodbyes and I put down the phone to grab a paper towel and wipe my eyes. Of all the times for Ray to get sweet on me. I sat there praying that when all this was over, he’d still be willing to talk about faith.
Then I got to thinking about what else he said. He didn’t exactly come out and tell me that Zoë was involved with Nicole’s missing credit card but it made sense. A couple of things I’d seen while sitting in that same courtyard where we’d argued yesterday made me want to call him back. How did I do that without breaching anybody’s confidence? And was I really sure about what I’d seen? I left Ben a note, grabbed my car keys and went to find Linnette. She was the one person I could think of who might help me find the answers.
ELEVEN
Summer session at Pacific Oaks meant odd hours for Linnette in the bookstore and for everybody at the Coffee Corner, especially in that period of limbo when graduation was over but summer classes hadn’t yet started. Linnette and the staff used the time to catch up, do inventory and restock. Maria kept the coffee shop open on short hours with limited staff for the faculty and college staff who worked no matter what time of year it was.
All that meant I had no trouble finding a quiet corner there to get a couple of lattes and sit down with Linnette when I convinced her to take a break and talk to me. She listened while I told her about my conversation with Ray and what he’d said and hadn’t said about Zoë and Nicole’s credit card. I recounted how we’d both agreed that we shouldn’t talk while he continued to investigate Nicole’s death. “But of course the minute I hung up after talking to him I thought of something I should tell him.”
“Wow. We both know how delighted he’d be if you called him back an hour or two after saying you shouldn’t talk any more during the investigation.” Linnette had seen enough of Ray during a couple of situations involving the Christian Friends that she didn’t have to be told how he’d react. “So how important do you think this is?”
“It could be serious if I really saw what I think happened. Let me see if you can add to what I recollect. On either the second or third therapy session I drove you to, Nicole came in later than usual, with Zoë closely following after her.”
“Right. I remember because Nicole seemed a lot more harried than usual. She came into our session apologizing for being late. Then a few minutes later when we were talking about our highs and lows since the last week, Zoë started to say something about where she’d spent the night before. Nicole led her off on a different subject very quickly.”
“I know that what I’m about to suggest would mean that Nicole broke about half a dozen rules and regulations as a therapist, but do you think she might have taken Zoë home with her? She seemed as unhappy as any of us when she found out that Zoë had to leave Playa del Sol as quickly as she did.”
Linnette didn’t speak for a few moments, and I could see her mulling the possibilities over in her mind. “It’s a real possibility. That would explain several things about that day. Zoë seemed a lot more put-together than usual, like somebody had been looking after her. And Nicole was even more disorganized and stressed than usual, as if she had something heavy on her mind.”
“So how do I get Ray to consider this? Without any more facts than I have, he’ll just dismiss this as ‘women’s intuition’ and we know how much store the great detective sets in that.”
Linnette made a wry face. “Yeah. None whatsoever, as he’s been so clear in the past.” She sipped her latte and thought for a while. “Since you can’t call him, maybe I can call or go over to his office and tell him what I saw. It wouldn’t be violating doctor-patient confidences because I’m the patient. As long as I don’t get into what anybody else said of a personal nature in the therapy session, I don’t think that’s a problem. And I might be able to mention what my chauffeur could add without mentioning her name.” She smiled at me.
“Thanks. I owe you one,” I told her.
She waved me away with an open palm. “You’ve done so much for me recently, I’m just happy to be able to pay back a little.”
“Friends don’t keep score. Especially as part of a Christian Friends group as tight as ours.”
She smiled again. “That’s because God doesn’t keep score, either, fortunately for all of us. Instead He gave us Somebody who’s wiped our scoreboard clean.”
On that note we stood up, gave each other a hug and got ready to go on with our day. “Call me when you know something,” I called as Linnette headed back to the bookstore to do more inventory. She smiled and nodded, giving me a wave. Then I stayed awhile to help Maria take stock of all the paper goods before heading home myself.
Halfway home I got to thinking that I hadn’t called my mom in over a week. I’d probably use all my remaining cell phone minutes for the month to catch h
er up on the last six days. When I pulled onto the driveway beside the apartment I stayed in the car and dialed her number. My stomach felt like it did the last time Ben talked me into riding the log flume at Six Flags. Telling Mom everything felt about like staring down that final descent. We exchanged hellos and she told me the latest about life in Missouri. Then she asked me how things were going out here. I took a deep breath and plunged in. “Well, Mom, remember when I was nineteen and you told me you hoped that someday I got a kid just like me? Well, guess what Ben came home and told me on Saturday ?” After that the whole story tumbled out.
Forty-five minutes later I went up the stairs to the apartment, humming to myself. Nothing took more weight off my chest than getting sympathy from my mother. I felt even lighter than when I’d walked out of our Christian Friends meeting last night. When she doesn’t think I’ve done something incredibly stupid, Mom listens like nobody else. Since stupidity wasn’t my problem in this case, I knew I’d sleep better tonight than any time in the last week.
Tidying up the apartment and grabbing Dixie for a walk afterward would guarantee a good night’s sleep. I got the dog and took my cell phone on my walk in case Linnette called with any news, but it was after dinner that night before she got back to me.
“Do you think Lexy can help find Zoë a lawyer better than the public defender she’ll get otherwise?” Linnette asked. “After what I overheard today, I know she’s going to need it.”
That didn’t sound so good. “Tell me all about it.”
She recounted her trip to the station, waiting for Ray in the waiting room we both knew too well. “He was interested in what I had to say. And I think he was grateful that you’d passed on information without calling him yourself. Before I could leave, an officer in uniform brought Zoë in.”
“How did she look?”
“Better dressed than before, still wearing that green jacket, but really off kilter otherwise. She acted really agitated, speaking loudly and not making a lot of sense.”
