“I tried to call you,” Joel said.
“My cell was turned off. I went to a movie.”
Dishes clattered, the refrigerator door opened and closed. I would like to cook with Joel once in a while, but he won’t let me help. It is as if he has the meal preparation planned like a military campaign and dinner is a mission in which there is no room for amateurs like me.
The week before we moved I served him a casserole that has kept me fed many a night—creamed corn covered in a layer of potato chips. It bakes in a quick half hour and you can vary the flavor depending upon the kind of potato chips you use, so it is both easy to make and adaptable. I think the casserole, combined with a new kitchen that Joel likes, may mean that I’ll do very little cooking from here on out.
“Lena?”
Joel stood behind his chair and waited for me to sit down. There were cloth napkins on the table, more pots and pans. Clearly he’d brought over some of the kitchen things. There were new dishes—a blue, yellow, and red pattern, very Mediterranean looking, very swirled.
“New plates?”
“Pier One.” Joel used a clawlike server to spoon fresh linguine on my plate. “What do you think?”
“They’re very pretty.”
“I should have checked with you first. Let you help pick them out.”
“No, no. They’re great. Really.”
Joel had made a dish we call Linguine Mendez. He puts olive oil in an iron skillet, and browns garlic and shallots. Then he puts organic baby spinach (or so it says on the package) in with sliced red peppers, portobello mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, capers, and a copious amount of white wine. While the vegetables simmer, he grates fresh Parmesan cheese, and puts that in the skillet followed by plain yogurt. He squeezes a fresh lemon over all of this and adds some more wine. Everything simmers, then goes over pasta.
I was there the night he made it up and it is one of my three favorite dinners, the other two being chicken and dumplings and hamburgers from White Castle.
I sat down in front of my plate of pasta, and Joel put warm bread on the table, a French baguette he’d bought at Sloane’s. He buttered one piece and handed it to me.
“Bon appétit, Lena.”
“Bon appétit.” I studied the bread, took a small bite.
“What movie did you see?” Joel asked.
He knew there was something on my mind. I knew he’d be patient until I was ready to talk. I cannot even imagine the self-control it takes to sit back and talk of other things. When I think Joel has something major on his mind, I want to pounce on him and jump up and down until I get the details out of him. That hasn’t ever worked.
I didn’t expect to be able to eat much, but halfway through a glass of the red Rhone wine that Joel had picked out, I began to feel an appetite. Joel ate steadily, telling me about a movie he’d seen when he was a little boy, some kind of mummy movie that gave him nightmares. He carried the conversation and let me sip my wine and eat when I felt like it. His quiet acceptance of my mood, my lack of appetite, my lack of conversation were a relief. I felt the tension in my shoulders start to ease. I realized I had been sitting with my shoulders high, arms clamped to my sides. Tonight I did not want to be questioned or pressed and I was grateful to be left alone.
Joel refilled my wineglass, and I closed my eyes, enjoying the buzz.
“I miss our table,” I said.
When Joel and I decided to buy the house, we also decided to buy a new bed and kitchen table. He didn’t like my table and I didn’t like his, so we compromised and got rid of them both. We ate on TV trays until we found a mission-style oak table that had been mistreated enough to be affordable, even in an antiques store. We don’t bother to lie and tell people we are going to refinish it one day, and it will be perfect for this kitchen if we ever get it moved out of Joel’s apartment.
He folded his napkin and put it under his plate. “I called some movers today, and found a local company that seems reasonable. They could pick up and deliver in three days.”
“Wind chimes, too. I miss wind chimes.”
Joel frowned at me. “We didn’t have wind chimes, Lena.”
“Wouldn’t you like some?”
“I hate wind chimes.”
“You hate wind chimes? How is it you never brought this up before?”
“I was hiding it from you. I was afraid you would leave me if you found out.”
“I guess you think you’re funny.”
“I guess you think I’m not.”
I drank more wine. So did Joel.
“Wind chimes are important to me,” I said. “They make me feel at home. There were wind chimes at Christy’s house. Right outside the kitchen window.”
“Lena, wind chimes drive me insane. I can’t sleep, I can’t concentrate.… I always end up yanking the damn things down.”
“So, what you’re saying is, if I hang them up you’ll take them down?”
“I won’t be able to stop myself the first night we get some real wind. Look, you’ll feel more at home when we get the furniture here. Do you think we could be ready for the movers in three days?”
“You mean, get everything packed?”
He nodded.
“Were you planning to help with the packing?”
“As much as I can. I have another meeting scheduled with Wilson McCoy tomorrow afternoon, so I’m not sure what my schedule will be.”
“Wilson McCoy is an ATF agent from California.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“And you’re working with him?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t.”
I let silence fall, wondering if Joel would tell me anything. He didn’t seem to mind the silence.
“That’s fine, Joel, but I have a paying client, so I don’t know what my schedule will be like either.”
Joel refilled his wineglass. Added some more to mine.
“Why do you do that?” I asked him.
“Fill your glass with wine?”
“No, no, the thing with the napkin. You do it every single meal.”
“What?”
“You know, fold it in half and put it under your dinner plate after you’re done.”
Joel nodded his head at me. “Your way is better, of course—balling it up after you get it all sticky, then tossing it over your shoulder to decorate the floor.…”
“I pick it up later.”
“I pick it up later.”
“I would if you didn’t.”
“You forget I saw your kitchen when you lived alone.”
That pretty much shut me up.
“So you don’t want me to schedule in three days?” Joel asked.
“Go right ahead if you think you can get everything packed by then.” I touched my lips with my napkin and tossed it over my shoulder. “Dinner was great, Joel. If you’ll leave the dishes, I’ll get them later. I’m going to take a hot bath.”
“I’ll get the dishes.”
“Joel, I’ll be happy to do them. You cook, it’s only fair. I’m just not going to do them right this second.”
I took my glass of wine and headed upstairs, trying to ignore the sound of running water and the clink of silverware in the sink.
Despite the wine and the long hot bath, I didn’t fall asleep. I was in bed when Joel came upstairs, and pretended to be asleep. I had my back to him when he stretched out on the other side of the bed and I crept as far over to my side as I could get.
It had come between us, the business of Cheryl Dunkirk, in ways I did not anticipate. I did not expect Joel to be so angry when he found out I was on the case, though in retrospect I see his point. I compromised his investigation that first day. We’d made up and forgiven the words that passed between us; it was the intangibles between us, much more difficult to pinpoint, that I did not expect. I felt like his distance and refusal to talk were his way of punishing me. The ease between us, so natural, so effortless, was slipping away.
The bed creaked a
nd the mattress shifted and I knew Joel was propped up on an elbow, facing me. He watches me sometimes when I sleep. He doesn’t know that I know. I don’t tease him about it, even playfully. Joel has a certain reserve that, once breached, makes him uncomfortable.
Sometimes I think he watches in order to gauge my feelings. In my opinion, he thinks he can puzzle out my internal dialogues from the expressions I have when I dream. He thinks he is being unobtrusive. He still does not understand that all he has to do is ask. Sometimes I think he does know this, but that watching me sleep is less time-consuming.
I sighed and rolled onto my back. I scrunched up my eyes, and did a sort of thing with my lips that I know from looking in the mirror is pretty alarming.
“Why are you making those faces, Lena?” Joel was looking down at me, I could feel his breath on my forehead.
“What faces?”
“Ah. Thought you were awake.”
“Insomnia is a crime now?”
He put his head on the pillow next to mine. “What’s on your mind, sweet? Something’s got you upset.”
I looked up at the ceiling. “I saw Cory Edgers today. I was alone with him in his house. He was kind of scary.”
“Don’t push the envelope with this guy, Lena. He’s a stone sociopath.”
“You could have told me that earlier.”
Joel gave me his favorite response, which was nothing.
I pulled the sheet up to my chin. “You know, I don’t feel like I can talk to you anymore.”
“You can talk to me about anything, Lena. You just can’t expect me to push the ethics on this one.”
“Cops talk to private investigators all the time, Joel.”
“You’re working for the victim’s family, and like it or not, I can’t tell you anything.”
“Fine. Whatever you say is right.”
“That’s got to be sarcasm.”
I turned sideways, away from him. “Right or wrong, I have a lot of feelings about this. If you really want to sort it out, we can talk it through, but it’s going to take a while.”
“I think we’ve already talked too much.”
Joel put a hand on my hip, very lightly resting on the white shirt I ended up stealing from his closet after all. His hand span was large, and he was able to pull at the buttons without moving his wrist, which still rested on my hip, but not so lightly now.
He grabbed me suddenly, pulling me up to meet his mouth, kissing me hard and pulling me close and grinding his hips into mine. I wrapped my legs around his and pulled him down beside me on the bed. There was no gentle back and forth between us tonight.
Joel turned my head sideways to move his mouth over mine, thrusting his tongue, sucking my bottom lip. He held one of my hands tightly, fingers entwined with my own, and we moved against each other more like wrestlers than lovers. He was inside me quickly, pushing hard as if he couldn’t get close enough.
After all our time together, we still surprised each other.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She told herself she was happy. She wasn’t. The realization of just how unhappy lurked in the corners of her mind, her subconscious trying to break through. She had hidden from this knowledge for years. She was good at it.
Her name was Kate and she was tall, big-boned, and leggy. Her metabolism burned calories like a match to a fuse. Her face was angular, with high cheekbones, and she had green eyes. Her hair was that color of blond mixed with brown that most women highlight. Kate’s hair has not been highlighted, and it hadn’t been recently cut.
Kate held tight to her son’s hand as he stepped off the front stoop, then let go as he pulled away. Leo ran out into the grass, making circles around Kate as she walked down the driveway toward the barn.
“Horsey,” Leo said.
Horsey was one of the few living, breathing subjects that claimed Leo’s attention. He preferred Lego’s, Brio train sets, or watching the video Milo and Otis in endless repetition. Kate was lonely at the top of the mountain; Leo was content.
The afternoon sun was strong, and Kate turned her face to the light, luxuriating in the warmth. It had been a surprisingly warm February on the mountain, and she was looking forward to spring. She’d been thinking that she and Leo might go up to Kentucky for a while, visit her parents. She realized that she’d been curtailing her visits home. It always seemed that things went badly with Cory when she spent time away. She could never decide if it was because he was purposely difficult, to punish her, or if a few days of being happy made her relationship with him harder to bear.
There was no friendly little grocery store anywhere near the mountain, no vet to look after the horse. The closest feed store was forty-five minutes away; they didn’t deliver, and they only sold coop feeds. They didn’t sell hay and their stall shavings were overpriced. Kate had to drive all the way to Oliver Springs to get the right feed for Sophie, who was twenty-seven years old. The mare, in many ways an easy keeper, thrived on Purina Equine Senior, but lost weight and colicked when fed anything else.
To add insult to injury, Anderson County was a dry county, which meant a forty-five minute drive for a simple bottle of red wine.
Kate had lost weight up on the mountain. Her jeans were so loose she could take them off without undoing the button-up fly. Her weight loss was obvious, even beneath the layers—a T-shirt under a flannel, both covered by a thin, oversized sweatshirt. The sweatshirt was gray, a loose boxy cut, and the seams of both shoulders had split. It was Kate’s favorite piece of clothing, even though it was stained and dingy from endless afternoons cleaning Sophie’s stall, rinsing out water buckets, and polishing the expensive, well-used tack. Over the layers of clothes, Kate wore a loose, dark green barn coat she bought three years ago at Southern States Feed.
Kate thinks wistfully of the feed stores in Kentucky. She thinks about the early mornings she spent stomping around in her barn boots with the farmers and other horsemen, discussions about what feed puts the shine in an animal’s coat, and what supplements put weight on an older horse. Nothing like spring and Kentucky bluegrass, was the usual consensus. She wandered through every aisle, looking at the water buckets, the feed bins, the fly masks; basic medical supplies, for the farmer on a budget, which is every farmer she’s ever known. Even the hardware interested her, the metal rings and hooks, screws and racks. The store was cold in the winter, the doors opened and closed too often to keep the heat in. Stale cigarette smoke mingled with fresh-lit cigars, and the camaraderie of people with common bonds.
The patter of Leo’s footsteps made Kate look up. He was running straight down the hill.
“Don’t fall,” Kate said, just as Leo toppled over.
He was back on his feet before she could get to him. His palms were bleeding from skidding in the gravel, but he did not cry. Leo was intent on the horse and would not be distracted.
The mare stuck her neck over the metal-pipe gate hung in the doorway. Sophie’s deep-throated nicker sounded like a purr. She liked her afternoon rides, and she knew that Kate would be pocketing carrots.
The barn was really a storage shed/workshop built by the original owners to house power tools and endless piles of junk. The house has been for sale for eight years. In lieu of buyers, the owners occasionally hooked the unwary renter, and had agreed, when pressed, that Kate could house her horse in the shed. The owners would agree to anything to secure a tenant. The last ones left in the middle of the night.
Cory had spent their first weekend on the mountain ripping out the shed’s built-in shelves, tossing the pieces of lumber behind the shed, making a scrap heap and covering it over with an old rug. Kate had been stunned at the remoteness of the house, the dirty bathrooms, the sticky kitchen, the old food in the refrigerator; the faltering well that made the bathwater run brown. Cory had stayed home three days, calming her fears, emphasizing how wonderful the place would be with Sophie right behind the house, surrounded by woods, populated by deer that grazed by the driveway, a raccoon that had nested on the porc
h. He had stood with her on the deck outside their bedroom, marveling over the view, which was stunning, and promising to cut back his work hours and be home with the family more often.
He’d cleared the tree limbs and debris in front of the shed, pronounced it a barn, and promised to help her clear out the inside on the following weekend.
Cory never got back to it, of course. Like many men in law enforcement, he worked long hours, and Cory worked longer than most. He believed that he would accomplish great things.
He was competitive with the younger men, who were ambitious, full of enthusiasm, and single with few ties. Cory told Kate that he was the best there was, because he combined the energy and commitment of the younger guys with the wisdom of maturity and experience. He was contemptuous of the older officers who were slowing down; many of them had flared and burned, the memory of their younger enthusiasms a lifetime away.
It took Kate four days to clear the shed out; four days in heavy gloves, driving endlessly up and down the mountain, hauling the shredded car-seat cushions (red faded to orange and grimy to the touch); the oily pieces of metal engine parts; the tricycle with the broken wheel; and countless open bags and canisters of toxins—chemicals to kill wasps, roaches, ants, weeds, fungus. Everything had to be loaded up and taken to the dump across from the Anderson County High School; there was no trash pickup in the country. If your car did not have Anderson County plates you were questioned. Not just any trash was welcome. It had to be Anderson County trash.
Kate was happy with her barn, particularly the tin roof that was painted a brilliant metallic blue. The curve of the roof made the barn look like a tiny horse chalet tucked beside the driveway, protected from the wind, on one of the few level spots cleared out on the mountain.
The shed worked better than one might have suspected, though Kate knew her father would not approve. He was particular in his views on fencing, stall shavings, the right feed and hay. When he’d shown up out of the blue four weeks ago bringing fifty bales of top-notch alfalfa hay for old Sophie, Kate was torn by her pleasure and relief in seeing that tall, familiar figure in the driveway of this hell house, and the uncomfortable anticipation of his disapproval.
Fortunes of the Dead Page 13
