“You’re sick,” I said.
He chuckled and straightened his half-mustache. “As is the whole world, Benni. Especially today. La Padrona is upstairs in her cave. Be careful, she’s baring her canines this morning. You’d better grab a mask before all the good ones are gone.” He pointed at the display of feathered and sequined masks near the door and loped off toward the children’s section.
I dug through, picked out a deep brown and green feathered one with slanted cat’s-eye slits outlined in emerald sequins, and headed upstairs. Elvia sat behind her antique mahogany executive desk, typing on her laptop computer. She wore a form-fitting black jersey dress accented with South American copper jewelry and trimmed around the neck with feathers in the multicolor browns and rusts of a hawk’s tail. An elaborate matching mask made of satin and sequins with tall, perfect feathers rested on the comer of her desk.
“This thing must be three feet high,” I said, picking it up and looking through the eye slits. “I stole one of your masks, by the way. Brad said I could.” I held it up in front of my face.
She looked up from her computer, her black eyebrows knitted together in irritation. “What am I going to do when he leaves? Are you sure you don’t want to quit that museum job of yours? You’d like the book business. No temperamental artists. Great benefits. I need someone I can trust.”
“I have done many foolish things in my life, especially lately, but there are some things even I am not crazy enough to do.”
Her frown deepened. “Are you implying I’m difficult to work for?”
I just smiled, picked up her coffee cup and took a sip.
“Get your own,” she said, grabbing at the mug. “I hate drinking after people.”
I held the coffee out of her reach. “Be nice, I’m here to help. Got anything you need me to do?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. You can take the truck out back and go pick up our crawfish order from Morita’s. Jose has both his assistants chopping vegetables or some such thing, and I think I’m going to open a half hour early, so I can’t spare any of my clerks.”
“For you, dear friend, anything.” I took another sip of her coffee and set it back down in front of her.
“Why are you so cheerful this morning?” She gave the cup a cross look, pushed it aside and waved at me to leave. “Never mind, I’m too busy to hear about your love life. The keys to the truck are in the register.”
“I’ve decided this whole love business is too complex. I think I’m going to buy a new horse. An auction’s coming up in Paso Robles in two weeks. Maybe I’ll get back into barrel-racing. That’s what I need, a hobby. I have too much spare time on my hands. You know what they say about idle hands.”
Elvia gave a dainty snort.
“I’m serious. Who needs men? All their brains are in their front pockets anyway.”
“Take it from someone who has been there. Do not, I repeat, do not make any rash decisions about anything while you are in this state of sexual hysteria. Wait until you’re rational again.”
“I am perfectly rational,” I said, with dignity. “And I am not in any state of hysteria whatsoever.”
“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Now go get my fish. And the mask is five ninety-five plus tax. You can add it to your account, which you are a week and a half late in paying this month, I might add.”
And people wonder why the bookstore’s such a success.
When I drove into Morita’s back parking lot, a plain white refrigerated truck pulled out, leaving one of the three employee spaces free. Mr. Morita’s Honda and Todd’s white Toyota occupied the other two. I knocked on the back door and when no one answered, walked in. An old wooden desk sat in the corner of the room. Piled haphazardly on the pitted top were stacks of old invoices, dusty ledgers, and a handleless blue teacup and matching teapot. Next to the black phone sat one of those cheap gold multi-photo frames from K-Mart. I started to pick it up and look at the black-and-white and color snapshots, when angry voices interrupted me. They came from behind the swinging doors separating the storeroom from the market. I stood on tiptoe and peeked through one of the small glass windows. Mr. Morita jabbed a thick finger in the air in front of Todd’s chest. Todd stared at the ground, his face tight and flushed with anger. Then Mr. Morita reached up and sharply slapped the side of his grandson’s head. Todd raised a fist and held it in front of him for a split second, his body trembling as if grasped by a seizure. I held my breath, waiting. Todd let out a small whimper, dropped his hand, turned and barreled toward the swinging doors. He banged them open, just missing me.
“Wait,” I said, as he ran past me, his long hair flying behind him. But he kept going, reaching an arm out and sweeping it across the desk, sending the picture frame and tea set crashing to the floor before slamming the back door. Mr. Morita walked in on me picking up pieces of broken glass and throwing them in the plastic trash can.
“So sorry,” he said. “My grandson, he is ...” He picked up a broom and started sweeping up glass and china with brisk, definite strokes. His face was empty of emotion.
££“It’s okay.” I smiled, trying to put him at ease. “He’s a teenager. Hormones, you know.” I shook the picture frame over the trash can, dumping the rest of the shattered glass. Most of the pictures were old. The largest, a black-and-white five-by-seven, was of a young Japanese couple dressed in forties-style clothing. She was a bit chubby and very pretty and looked to be about Todd’s age. The man looked a year or two older. “Is this you and your wife?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice so low I had to bend my head to hear him. “We were just married.”
“When was it?”
“April in 1942.” His dark eyes grew soft and liquid. “My Hatsumi was a good wife. A very good wife.” He shook his head in disgust. “Not like grandson. He’s like his mother, always fighting this, fighting that.”
I peered closely at the fuzzy photograph. There appeared to be stables in the background, a chain-link fence, some children playing with a ball of some kind. Mr. Morita and his new wife squinted against the bright sun. “Where did you get married?” I asked. “Was this somewhere on your honeymoon?”
He set the broom aside and took the picture from me. “The guard was very kind. We were not allowed cameras, but he felt pity on us, just married and no marriage picture. He could have gotten in much trouble. His name was Joe. He gave us a beer to drink, to toast our marriage and made us laugh with stories of his little boy. He came from Nebraska and his father grew corn. He wanted to grow corn too, when the war was over. Just like his father. He felt bad about having to guard us. He said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Morita, I’m sorry.’ Over and over. Like he make the camp. I told him, it’s okay, not his fault, think about corn he has to go back to.”
“Oh,” was all I could manage to say. I hadn’t even put two and two together when he mentioned the date. “That’s a wonderful story, Mr. Morita. Would you mind if I wrote it up and put it in the Historical Society book?”
He looked troubled for a moment. “I don’t know ...”
“I know it doesn’t mean anything to Todd now, but maybe it will someday, when he gets older. When he can appreciate what you and your wife went through to give him what he has today.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. Sometimes maybe just better to forget.”
“Please,” I said, thinking that perhaps when I wrote it up I could show it to Todd. Then he could see what his grandfather had gone through, why his store meant so much to him, even maybe why he found it easier to ignore reality, even a reality as terrible as the deaths of a wife and daughter.
“Okay,” he said wearily.
I looked quickly over the rest of the pictures. They were the usual family snapshots and school portraits. I guessed that Hatsumi or perhaps Keiko, Todd’s mother, put together this collage for Mr. Morita. One was obviously Keiko’s first school picture and another was Todd’s. Another was a family shot of Mr. Morita, Hatsumi, Keiko holding Todd, and another J
apanese man in some sort of military uniform.
“Who is this?” I asked, wondering if Mr. Morita had another child.
He glanced over at where I was pointing. “Todd’s father.”
“Anthony Simmons?” I looked back in confusion at the photograph. He didn’t appear to be part Caucasian.
“No, real father,” Mr. Morita said. “Leo Watanabe. Died in Vietnam. Now, I must get back to work.” He picked up a broom and started sweeping up the glass.
“Oh,” I said, wondering where Todd’s Caucasian genes came from, but knowing it would be rude to ask. Maybe I’d ask Ramon the next time I saw him—or maybe even Todd himself. I stood awkwardly watching him sweep, then suddenly remembered why I’d come to the fish store. “I’m supposed to pick up some crawfish for Blind Harry’s.”
“Of course, of course,” he said, setting the broom down, nodding his head and smiling. “Right here.”
I loaded the boxes of frozen fish in the back of the truck, and after dropping them off at Blind Harry’s, I decided to take a walk down to Bonita Street, where the major part of the Mardi Gras Festival was taking place. Both entrances to the side street, which intersected Lopez, were blocked off with sawhorses and arched with gold, green and purple helium-filled balloons. Long yellow plastic tape resembling police-line tape, with the cheerful command “Have a Happy Mardi Gras” in purple print decorated the wooden booths. Plastic Mardi Gras beads in gaudy, brilliant blues, pinks and oranges, gold “King Baby” earrings, sparkly metallic wigs, and cheap plastic masks of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ross Perot and Bozo the Clown seemed to be selling quicker than the street vendors could restock the plastic bins. Though it wasn’t eleven o’clock yet, food booths featuring dirty rice, crawfish gumbo, sweet potato pie, red beans and rice, shrimp po-boys and muffelata sandwiches were already pushing their wares.
In front of Marshalls Jewelry Store—since 1889—a a green and purple crepe paper skirt surrounded a long folding table where two elaborately decorated chairs were the thrones for this year’s Mardi Gras King and Queen—Jeff and Marie Booker—twins who finished first in team roping at last year’s Mid-State Fair Rodeo. A big yellow sign in front of the table stated “Judging area for the Greatest Gumbo in the West. Proceeds go to St. Mary’s Shelter for Abused Children.” A list tacked to the front named the volunteer participants. One of the entries was the San Celina Police Department, and before I could catch myself I thought, I’ll have to ask Gabe who the Cajun cook was. I swallowed hard and walked away, trying to ignore the depression that gnawed at my heart. At the co-op’s crowded booth, feelings between the warring creative factions seemed to have cooled down. Jan and Malcolm were laughing at a mime prancing behind a woman with a poodle dyed pale lavender and wearing a small black Mardi Gras mask attached to its tiny head with wide rubber bands. The front display area contained an equal amount of pottery and quilts.
I was waiting in line to get something to drink and trying to decide whether I really wanted to try some gumbo this early in the day, when a hand gently grabbed the back of my neck.
“Buy you a beer? Root beer, that is.”
I looked up at Mac, my stomach lurching with anxiety, remembering the last time we talked at the Reid Ranch. The friendly smile on his face reassured me. “Sure, I’ll always accept a free drink.”
“Let’s go over here,” he said, carrying our frosty cans over to a vacant wooden bench across from the Old West façade of the San Celina Brewing Company. Crawfiche Pye, this year’s official Mardi Gras band, was playing a Dixieland jazz version of “Bye Bye Blackbird.” We sat silently watching the musicians—a pocked-faced Asian boy on electric guitar, a surfer with a blond ponytail and black math-teacher glasses on bass fiddle, a fat woman in an orange muumuu playing congo drums and two men dressed like the Blues Brothers blowing trumpets the color of stainless steel.
“You look tired,” Mac said. The band struck up a calypso version of “Go Down Moses.”
I took a sip of my root beer. “Bad night. The memory goblins came to visit. You know how that goes.”
“Yes, I certainly do,” he said, sitting back and stretching his arm across the back of the bench. “How’s Gabe?”
“I guess you’ll have to ask him.”
“I was afraid of that. I’m sorry if what I did caused trouble between you two. I didn’t tell him you saw me.”
“I know you didn’t, but he’s a good cop. He figured it out on his own. Don’t worry about it. Sometimes these things just aren’t meant to be.”
He slipped his massive arm down around my shoulders and hugged me. “I don’t think that’s the case here. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“You didn’t see the way he looked at me when he found out I held something back from him. I don’t think you realize how sacred crime-scene evidence is to him.”
“I have my suspicions. He really read me the riot act when I went in and confessed. And everything he said was absolutely right. I have no excuse, except that I don’t want my grandmother involved.”
“Does he know what you picked up has to do with her?”
“I think he might, though he didn’t press it. You’re right, he’s not a stupid man. He said he wouldn’t bring charges against me, at least not right now. There’s an officer on duty in my grandmother’s wing at night. I have a feeling Gabe’s just biding his time, waiting to see what might happen. Whatever he has up his sleeve, he’s not telling me.”
“Or me.”
He drained the rest of his root beer. “I went to the board of deacons on Tuesday and told them what I did. I’ve kind of thrown them into a quandary. The church will have to take a vote. Looks like I may not be living in San Celina much longer.” He stretched out his arms in front of him. “I don’t know what to do about Grandma, though. She’d hate me leaving here, but if the church asks for my resignation, I’ll have to go somewhere else.”
“I talked to her on Wednesday.”
He rested his ankle on his knee and gave a noncommittal sound.
“She wouldn’t tell me a thing,” I continued. “She said that you didn’t know what this was all about, that you were lying to me when you said you did. Were you?”
He watched the musicians and tapped the empty can on his thigh in time to the Cajun rhythms. “I can’t talk about that,” he finally said.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
He gave a sigh worthy of his wide chest and crumpled the can with one hand. “You know, it seems like in less than a week, everything I’ve spent the last twenty years learning about morality has flown out the window. I found out something about myself I didn’t like.”
“What’s that?”
“The realization that, for certain people, I would do anything, even break the law, to protect them. And if I can break man’s laws so easily, will God’s laws be far behind?
What kind of minister, what kind of Christian does that make me?”
I looked at my hands, knowing my answer would be inadequate. But it was the only one I had. “The human kind, I guess.”
He shook his head in disgust and tossed the crumpled can in the recycling bin next to the bench. “I need to walk. See you later.” He stood up and started to move into the crowd.
“Wait,” I said, tossing my can after his and dodging people to catch up to him. “What about Oralee? Are you just going to leave it like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe if you and I talked to her together, she’d tell us what this is all about and it’ll help solve the murders and ...”
“Benni, just let it be.” His voice was low and sharp. “Things are bad enough... I mean it. We burned that letter ...” He stopped abruptly. “Just stay out of it,” he said and pushed his way into the crowd.
“Okay,” I said out loud. “So it was a letter. Big deal. That doesn’t tell me anything.”
I bought myself a shrimp po-boy sandwich more for something to do than hunger and walked over to Lopez Street to watch the city workers
set up the bleachers and judging booths for the parade. I waved to Miguel, who was supervising the placing of the police barriers. He was dressed in the jeans, navy blue polo shirt and dark San Celina Police windbreaker that the officers wear when they’re on crowd control at the more casual city functions. I perched on the brick wall in front of Currant’s, a Danish-style bakery and coffee house, and took a bite of my French roll, gagging on the excess mayonnaise. I opened it up and started, popping the fried shrimp into my mouth, trying to decide what to do about Oralee and Mac. With each shrimp, I counted off, “get involved, don’t get involved.” That seemed to be as logical a way to make a decision as any. I was down to five shrimp and no closer to a conclusion, when the sound of knuckles on glass made me lose count.
I turned around and peered through the rippled window of Currant’s. Over in the corner, next to the smoke-stained potbelly stove, a chubby hand beckoned me. I tossed my sandwich in the trash can and went into the coffeehouse.
“Russell,” I said. “I haven’t seen you in ages. How’s retirement?”
Russell Hill, my former history professor and mentor from Cal Poly, was sitting at one of the round glass tables with Mariko Thompson and an elderly Japanese woman wearing thick horn-rimmed bifocals and a beautiful brick-red mohair sweater. He wore the same baggy blue sweater, faded corduroy slacks, brown-on-brown saddle oxfords and neat, peppered goatee he’d taught in every day of his thirty-year academic career.
“Benni Harper, that’s entirely your fault, not mine.” He stood up and with the old-fashioned manners that always endeared him to his students and colleagues, pulled out a Shaker-style chair. “Where have you been keeping yourself these days?” he asked in the low, rolling monotone that, much as they loved him, sometimes put his students to sleep on warm spring afternoons. He turned to his companions. “Forgive me, before we start reminiscing, this is Mariko Thompson, a colleague, and her mother, Mrs. Yamaoka. We are all out today to enjoy the festival and parade.”
Irish Chain Page 24
