“Be careful,” I called after her and the bus driver gave a good-natured wave, thinking I was talking to him.
The bus pulled out of the parking lot just as Clay’s rented white car turned in. The fluttering in my stomach could have been either excitement or dread. Lately, those two sensations were beginning to feel like identical twins. I was confused about my feelings for Clay. I’d dreamed about both him and Gabe last night, a wisp of a dream I could barely remember, but it brought me awake in a trembling sweat and left me feeling vaguely aroused and vulnerable. I felt trapped somehow, as if they both had some sort of power over me.
“Hope you’re not thinking about me,” Clay said, stepping out of his car.
“What do you mean by that?” I snapped, irritated that genetics had given me the sort of face that couldn’t win a poker hand if my life depended on it.
“Just what I said. With the frown you’re wearing on that pretty face of yours, I hope it’s not me you’re thinking about.”
“It’s not. I’m just real busy. Is there something I can do for you?” The quicker I got rid of him, the quicker I could put all those discomforting thoughts out of my mind.
He leaned against the fender of the car and crossed his arms. I looked up at him, my eyes lingering momentarily on his mouth, remembering the other night, remembering seventeen years ago. “Well?”
“I do believe there is. As a matter of fact, it could be mutually satisfying for both of us.” He gave me a sleepy-lidded smile, daring me to react to his innuendo.
I pushed my bangs back impatiently and said, “Clay, what do you want?”
Unruffled, he said, “Sounds like the red in your hair is winning today, so I’ll just have my say and let you get back to work. The attic at Brady’s place has got three trunks full of old stuff—papers, books, things about San Celina County. I hear you’re affiliated with the Historical Society.”
“Yes, so?” I wondered where he’d found that out and what else he knew about me.
“So, I need to get someone to take a look at it. It doesn’t mean anything to my family and I was thinking the Historical Society might find some use for it.”
“Maybe,” I said, knowing that Dove and the other ladies in the group would cut off a finger for something like this. Mr. O’Hara had been a resident of San Celina County for almost sixty years. There had to be tons of documents and photographs that would add to the body of knowledge about the county. Normally, the idea of going through the old trunks of someone like Brady O’Hara would have fascinated me, but I suspected Clay had more on his mind than adding to the annals of San Celina history.
“Why don’t you give the Historical Society a call and see if one of the members would like to go through it with you?” I asked.
“I went by the museum and the lady at the reception desk gave me Dove’s phone number, and well ...” He looked at me with an exaggerated hangdog expression. “I never was one of her favorite people.” He balanced one heel of his elegant boots on the toe of the other, his face pensive.
Unable to resist, I softened. “No, you weren’t,” I agreed. For a moment, he was nineteen-year-old Clay O’Hara again—the boy with the long dangerous sideburns and cocky attitude who buried his head in my lap and sobbed when his dad sent a letter telling him his brown Labrador, Galveston, had been caught under a tractor’s tires and killed. “When do you want to go through them?”
He stood up, straightened his hat and grinned and I knew I’d been had. But somehow, right then, it didn’t matter. “Whenever’s the most convenient time for you.” He lowered his voice to an intimate rumble. “Maybe, if you work real hard, I’ll even buy you dinner afterwards.”
“Let’s just worry about the trunks right now,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for another dinner with him, or another of his kisses. I took a deep breath. Tomorrow was too soon. I ran through the day after’s schedule in my mind—morning with Gabe to visit Aaron and Rachel, one o‘clock, Miss Violet’s funeral. I couldn’t miss that. “How about four o’clock day after tomorrow?” I said.
“Fine. Where do you want me to pick you up?”
“I’ll meet you there.” There was no way I was going to be stuck in the boonies with Clay O’Hara and no means of escape. I hadn’t lost all my senses. “It’s out past the airport, near the Wheeler Ranch, right?”
“Right.” He opened the car door, then turned, a teasing squint to his warm brown eyes. “Tell me something, Widow Harper.”
“What’s that?”
“Are you really irritated at me coming to see you or just at yourself for being glad I did?” Before I could answer, he climbed in the car and started the engine.
I watched him drive out of the parking lot and wondered what I’d let myself in for. You can handle Clay O’Hara, I told myself firmly. There is nothing he can make you feel or do that isn’t totally under your control. You call the shots in this game.
That irritating little echo of Dove’s voice came back to me, as it does whenever I start feeling too arrogant:
Only if you hold the winning hand, honeybun. Only if you hold the winning hand.
11
THE NEXT MORNING, my conscience got the better of me, and when I arrived at the museum, I called Gabe.
Dialing his number, I debated with myself about how much I should tell him. I was beginning to lose track of what I knew and what I was keeping from him. Doodling question marks, triangles and hearts on my notepad, I waited for him to answer.
“Ortiz,” he answered in his dominant, chief-of-police voice.
“Hi, it’s me.”
His voice relaxed. “Finally, a voice that doesn’t want something.” A full-throated laugh rumbled pleasantly in my ear. “You don’t, do you?”
“Actually, I’m going to give you something. That is, if you promise not to get mad at me or ask me questions about my source.” I didn’t want the police questioning Thelma again and bringing attention to the fact that she knew something.
“What is it?” His voice turned stiff.
“I mean it. Promise me.”
“Benni ...”
“I mean it.”
Something resembling a growl came over the phone lines.
“Okay,” he snapped. He’d known me long enough now to know how stubborn I could be.
“It’s rumored that Edwin Montrose has a slight gambling problem.”
When he didn’t react, I continued. “Apparently it’s being said that he could have embezzled some money from the retirement home, and the endowment that I heard Mr. O’Hara was thinking about leaving to Oak Terrace could help hide Edwin’s little predicament.”
He still didn’t react and I wondered how much of this he already knew.
“Is that it?” he asked.
“Pretty much.”
“I guess it’s basically a waste of breath for me to ask who told you this.”
“Yes, basically.” I waited for him to lecture me. As usual, he surprised me.
He gave a sigh into the receiver so heavy I could almost feel his warm minty breath. “What am I going to do with you, Benni Harper?”
“I guess I’m probably the last person who knows the answer to that one. Maybe you should ask Dove.”
“She told me she gave up on you when you turned thirteen.”
“See,” I said cheerfully. “You’re in good company.”
“Just be careful. This is serious business. You aren’t—”
“A trained professional, I know, I know,” I finished. “I am being careful. I told you what I found out about Edwin. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Look,” he said, his voice weary. “Will you promise me that you’ll tell me everything you find out? Will you at least do that?”
I was silent, not wanting to lie, but knowing there was no way I could make that promise. Not yet. I wanted to ask if Mac had talked to him yet, but I didn’t. If he hadn’t, then I’d have to explain to Gabe why I’d even asked.
“If I think i
t’s relevant,” I hedged.
He blew out an angry breath and I tensed, waiting for his tongue-lashing. He fooled me again. His voice shifted into neutral. “I talked to Rachel and Aaron today.”
“How’s he feeling? The chemo’s done now, isn’t it?” I was more than happy to change the subject. “What time do we go over there tomorrow?”
“Nine o’clock. She says Aaron’s had a good couple of days. We can stay for an hour or so.”
“I wish there were more we could do to help.”
“I know.” He cleared his throat. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
“Aaron officially resigned last week.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. Or rather, I knew, but didn’t want to ask. “Well, that’s no surprise, is it?”
“The city council offered me the job.”
“That’s great.” I hesitated, wondering why he hadn’t told me before now. “I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I mean, if it’s what you want.”
He sighed again. “I don’t know what I want. Right now, I think I want to get in my Corvette and play Route 66.”
“Well, send me a postcard.” If he expected me to beg him to stay, he was talking to the wrong lady.
In the background, I heard a buzz.
“I have another call,” he said. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning about eight-thirty.”
“That’s fine. Talk to you later.”
“Right,” he said, his voice distracted and distant.
At least your conscience is clear, I told myself as I hung up the phone and glanced over the list of people I needed to call for the Historical Society interviews. Well, another little voice said, semi-clear. You didn’t tell him everything.
And why should I? I argued back. He might not even be police chief next month. And who cared anyway? What did we really have? A few kisses, a few meals, some fun times. That’s what dating was all about, right? I was free, adult and single. I could do anything I wanted. I could.
And so could he.
As I studied the list of interviewees, I got that funny feeling you get when you feel someone watching you. I looked up and Todd was standing in the doorway, staring.
“Hi,” I said. “When did you get here?”
“About a half hour ago. I finished everything on the list you gave me. Is there anything else you want me to do?”
I sat back in my chair, pleasantly surprised. “Gee, I have to think ...” This deal with Todd just might work out, I thought optimistically. He was quick, quiet and hardworking. An assistant from heaven. Don’t get too used to it, a voice inside me warned. Remember the unpredictability of teenagers. I looked at my watch. Ten o’clock. “Well, you’re so efficient that I’m going to have to make up another list. Don’t you have any classes?”
“Not today.” He stood quietly watching me, waiting, it seemed, for something.
I looked at him curiously. “I guess you can come back tomorrow. I’ll figure out something for you to do then.”
“Okay,” he said, nervously flipping his shiny brown hair out of his eyes. “See ya.”
I spent the rest of the day setting up interviews and making up a general question sheet that I’d use with each subject. At four o’clock, as I was walking out the door, a group of quilters were setting up in the main studio, ready for an evening of stitching.
“A Quadruple Irish Chain,” I said. “That must have been fun to piece. How big are those squares, anyway?” The stair step squares’ striking color combination of sea-green, antique white and black and gray would make this quilt an easy sale.
“One inch,” one of the quilters said. “And it’s going to take a lifetime to quilt. Not that it matters now.”
“Why is that?”
“We did it on order for Mr. O’Hara, that man who was killed. And he already paid for it. We were going to ask you what we should do with it now.”
“I guess legally it should go to his heirs. I’m going to talk to his great-nephew tomorrow. I’ll ask him.” And, I thought, it’ll give me a legitimate reason to ask him if he knows who inherits in Mr. O’Hara’s will.
“Well, let us know,” the woman said and bent over the quilt.
My alarm didn’t go off the next morning, so when Gabe knocked on my door I was still pulling a brush through hair knots only people with very curly hair understand. He was dressed in casual yuppie clothes—khaki chinos, a pale yellow Izod polo shirt, beat-up leather topsiders with no socks and, his only concession to the sharp Central Coast winter breezes, a brown distressed-leather bomber jacket.
“You look like you need this worse than me.” He handed me his commuter mug of coffee before climbing into the Corvette. “We need to stop by the fish store downtown before we go to Aaron’s.”
“Why?” I sipped at the coffee while reaching over and turning the heater to high. The one thing I don’t like about convertibles is, even with the top up, they never feel warm.
“Pick up some of their smoked salmon for Aaron. Rachel says for some reason it’s one of the few things his stomach is able to tolerate.”
We fought through the senior citizen breakfast-crowd traffic downtown and found a parking space three blocks from Morita’s Fish Market and Deli in the Old Town section of San Celina. Gabe grabbed my hand and tucked it inside the pocket of his jacket. We walked down the street past the restored brick and adobe buildings that once held the city’s major commercial businesses, but now housed funky shoe boutiques featuring Doc Martens and Birkenstocks, French-style bakeries and gourmet pizza restaurants. Right at that moment, strolling down the already busy street, taking in the mixed scents of yeasty bread, the sharp, metallic smell of just-washed sidewalks, the sage and oregano from cooking pizza sauce, feeling the warmth of Gabe’s large hand enveloping mine, contentment filled my heart, all the more sweet for the fact that I knew, like most good things, it would last for only the briefest of time. But I was learning to savor moments like this, store them up in my mind for the future, to withdraw on days when it didn’t seem possible that there was one beautiful thing left in the world.
Mr. Morita, Todd’s grandfather, was wiping off the red-checked plastic tablecloths on the three round tables sitting in front of his combination fish store/deli. A matching awning of red-striped canvas shaded him from the unusually bright February sunlight. He looked up when he heard us approach, his oval face, the color of orange pekoe tea and as softly creased as an old boot, breaking into a welcoming smile when he saw Gabe, one of his best customers. I guessed him to be somewhere in his middle to late sixties.
“Chief Ortiz,” he said. “So good to see you.” He ran a sturdy hand over the thin hair just barely covering his head. “What can I get you today? Nice red snapper? Fresh-caught today. Halibut maybe?”
“Just a pound of your smoked salmon,” Gabe said.
We followed him into the small, clean store and watched him wrap up the order. After he handed the white paper package to Gabe, he turned to me. “Is there something you like?”
I shook my head. “Not today, thank you.” Then it dawned on me that there was something I wanted from him.
“Mr. Morita,” I said. “Were you living in San Celina before 1941?”
He looked at me oddly. “Since 1936.”
“That’s great.” I explained to him quickly about the Historical Society book and how his grandson would be involved in it. Maybe that would soften him up about talking to me. “Would you talk to me about that time of your life?” I watched him carefully. About a third of the people I’d called yesterday had refused to be interviewed for the book, though no one had actually been rude about it. Some people apparently had no desire to relive that difficult time of their life and who could really blame them?
He wiped his hands on his spotless apron, his face soft and blank. “I am very busy. There is much work here these next few days with the festival, but maybe next week.” He gave me a pr
acticed, public smile and turned to a chubby woman in hot-pink bicycle shorts who wanted some crawfish for a Mardi Gras party she was throwing that weekend. I mentally put him on my “maybe” list.
Aaron and Rachel lived in a small blue and gray saltbox house in Morro Bay on a bluff overlooking Morro Rock and the Embarcadero. The flower boxes under the front windows were bare, a graphic reminder of the seriousness of Aaron’s condition. Rachel’s needlework and her flowers were her two great passions, her refuge when the pressures of his illness became too much for her. Though I hadn’t known her long, I admired her quiet strength and the dignified way she accepted this tragedy in her life. Aaron was the humorous one, a lover of silly jokes and nicknames; he teased Gabe, causing him to grin like a teenager and blush by telling him he should call me Peanut because I was so short and by the look in his eyes, he couldn’t get enough of me. He made Gabe laugh in a way that gave me a glimpse of what he must have been like as a younger man. And Rachel, with the easy grace of a natural mother, waited on and nagged Gabe in her gentle, affectionate voice. He relaxed around the Davidsons in a way I’d never seen before. A part of me was jealous that they had known him since he was twenty-two, had such a long history with him. I tried to imagine him an eager rookie, riding with Aaron through the rough streets of East Los Angeles. But even with the photos Rachel showed me of a dark, lanky Gabe and a robust, auburn-haired Aaron, I couldn’t picture it.
“I’m glad you came,” Rachel said, leading us into the living room. She was a spare, delicate woman in her late fifties with short, silver-streaked brown hair and eyes the intense reddish-brown of port wine. Her navy wool skirt hung loosely on her hips; her pale blue cashmere sweater seemed a size too big. “Aaron’s out on the patio. He’s been so looking forward to seeing you both.” She pushed back a stray strand of her neat hair and answered Gabe’s worried look with calm eyes. “He had a rough night, Gabe, but he says the sunshine makes him ache less.”
Gabe laid a hand on her narrow shoulder, kneading it absently. “Is there anything you need, Rachel?”
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