“Or you find out there was nothing there to begin with,” I muttered, pulling into the Oak Terrace parking lot. Wait and see. Gabe’s advice seemed like the wisest move for me right now considering Lin Snider.
Oak Terrace had been a part of my life for the last six years, even before Gabe and I met. Shortly after I started my job as museum curator, Maxine, the recreation coordinator at Oak Terrace, asked me to start a quilt guild for the residents. Maxine was a member of the Cattlewomen’s Association and, I suspected, she was put up to it by my sneaky but well-meaning gramma, who was trying to fill my lonely nights.
I reluctantly attended the first meeting of fifteen women, expecting a few sweet old ladies who smelled of Jean Naté cologne and needed someone to thread their needles and make them chamomile tea. What I found was a group of women who, though physically past their prime, were as mentally sharp and interesting as any of my friends. I did, indeed, thread their needles and make their tea, often spiked behind my back with someone’s hidden flask of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. I only knew this because I took a big gulp from my mug and almost sprayed my mouthful of whiskey tea all over the half-finished Courthouse Steps quilt stretched out on the quilting frame. They laughed and smacked each other like a bunch of preteen boys who’d put a tack on their teacher’s chair.
“I’m glad I’m wearing my Depends,” Thelma Rook said, laughing so hard tears ran from her eyes. To this day, I have no idea who spiked my tea. I just made sure to keep my tea mug close to me since I did have to drive home.
To say these lively women saved my life would be an exaggeration, but since every one of them was a widow, some more than once, they were certainly the best grief counselors a young widow could have. Over the years, we’d discussed everything from the sad state of 1930s birth control to how to make a delicious cake without sugar to the similarities between the Korean and Vietnam wars. There wasn’t a problem I could tell them without at least one of these women having encountered or experienced something similar.
They delighted in my and Gabe’s courtship and marriage, hanging on every emotional bump and pothole along our rocky road to marital bliss. To think I could hide anything from them was being naive. Maybe that’s why I moved slowly toward this meeting tonight. I wasn’t sure if I was up to delving into what was happening with Gabe. At least not yet. These ladies had helped me through many rough times, including when he didn’t know if he was still in love with his former girlfriend, Del. They were ready to take up arms (and canes) and go after her, making me laugh at their spirited solutions. Which, of course, was the point. We’d started out with fifteen women, but with deaths and additions, were holding at a steady ten or so, depending on who was having physical ailments.
“Father Always-On-Time is mowing us down like alfalfa,” Janet Bottroff said at the funeral of one of our original members. Janet had been a professional tailor her whole life and had worked in the costuming department of MGM back in the thirties and forties. She claimed to have once been kissed by Clark Gable. “I’ve thought about asking San Celina Floral to consider offering seniors a punch card—buy ten funeral bouquets, get one free.”
“Maybe we need to lower our age requirements,” said Martha Pickering, her roommate. When we’d initially formed the group, the women had decided a person had to be seventy-five to join Coffin Star Quilt Guild.
“One of the youngsters over in Building C was complaining of age discrimination,” Thelma said. That “youngster” was seventy-two. “Maybe we do need some younger blood.”
“I don’t know,” said Pat Tobin, another new member who had just moved here from Washington. Thin and elegant as a flamingo, she’d sailed around the world three times in her capacity as an activities director for Holland America cruise line. She often kept us in stitches with stories about the crazy things people requested on cruises. “Those under seventy-fivers are kind of flighty.” The other women murmured in agreement.
Before entering the pale pink and mint green lobby decorated with ivy wallpaper and pink baskets of fake Boston ferns, I dialed Gabe. Until this sniper was caught, I assumed every night would be a late one. There were task force meetings, meetings with the mayor, city council, and eventually, the FBI. All I could do was stand by and let him know I was there.
He answered on the second ring, his voice all business. “Chief Ortiz.”
“Hey, handsome, you doing okay?”
“Querida.” His voice lowered, caressing the word that almost felt like my name now. “It’s crazy here. I won’t be home for dinner.”
“I didn’t think so. I’m at Oak Terrace with the Coffin Star ladies.”
His chuckle was a cheerful tune in my ear. He loved the ladies and their sense of humor, though I often wondered if he’d adore them quite as much if he knew how much they knew about him. “Give them my regards.”
“I sure will. I’ll be here a couple of hours, then I’ll head home. Any progress?”
His sigh was audible. “The FBI has started their profiling thing, but between you and me, it could be anybody for any reason. So many people hold grudges against cops. We’re sifting through every letter and threat recorded in the last five years. We’re also checking recruits who didn’t make it through the academy. Those college students who rented the apartment the first shooter used have practically had proctology exams we’ve dug so deeply into their backgrounds.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Nothing. As far as we can see, they are just typical college kids who handed out too many keys to their apartment.”
“Don’t forget to eat dinner,” I felt compelled to say since there was nothing else I could do for him. “Do you want me to bring you something?”
“No, but thanks. Maggie is making sure everyone’s being fed.”
“Be careful. I don’t want you to be the next target.”
“I will. Te amo.”
“Love you too.”
Oak Terrace’s ivy theme, executed during the retirement home’s last remodel, continued in the waist-high stenciled ivy motif that circled the recreation room. Even the curtains on the long windows had an ivy and oak leaf motif. Six women waited for me, their wheelchairs pulled around the large rectangular folding table. I was surprised to see a new, brightly colored quilt spread out on the table.
“Where’s the coffin quilt?” I asked, setting the pink Stern’s Bakery box down next to the new Bunn coffeemaker. The scent of coffee surrounded me as the machine gurgled to its finish. “I thought we were finishing that.”
“Oh, we finished that last week,” Dorothy Harrington said, waving a chubby hand at me. She was round-faced with pale green eyes and ginger-colored hair. Every piece of clothing she wore was polka-dotted because her father used to call her Dotty. “It’s over yonder ready for you to take to the Memory Fair.” She shifted in her wheelchair. “I hope that’s cherry chip brownies in those pink boxes.”
“It is. And we’ve already sold nine hundred and sixty-two dollars worth of tickets for the raffle quilt.” I’d been worried that the somewhat macabre quilt might be a hard sell. Instead, it had been one of our easiest raffle quilts to promote. Morbid apparently was all the rage, especially among college students. The ladies were considering making a second one.
“So, what’ve you got here?” I asked, sitting down at the head of the table.
“Spider Web quilt,” said Pat. “My own design. We had tons of scraps, so we decided to use ’em up.” She ran her hand over the doublesize quilt top. The multicolored spider web design reminded me of exploding pizzas.
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” Janet started the famous Depression-era slogan. The other women joined in, reciting the words in a singsong chant. Then they cackled like a bunch of Dove’s hens. Pat gave me a mischievous wink.
“It’s cool,” I said, gazing over the quilt. Each separate spider web background was made with tiny triangles of colorful fabric; the spider’s web itself was made with black fabric. At each corner of
the two-inch black border were log cabin squares made with the same multicolored fabric as the insides of the spider webs. “Very bright and cheerful.”
“My five-year-old great-grandson said the webs looks like pizzas,” said Vynelle Williams, one of the guild’s original members. “He called it the Spider Man Pizza quilt.”
“My thoughts exactly!” I said, laughing. “So, what’re we doing with it?”
“Top’s finished,” Pat said. “We thought we’d start quilting today.”
“Sounds good. You all have some refreshments, and I’ll set up the quilting frame.”
In twenty minutes the quilting started. As needles flew up and down through the multipatterned fabric “webs,” so did the conversation.
“I was thinking we’d raffle this one off too,” Vynelle said. “Maybe donate the money to the Alzheimer’s unit here at Oak Terrace. They need a new karaoke machine.”
“They can’t sing to it, of course,” Janet explained to me. “But the nurses use it to serenade the residents, and the folks seem to enjoy it.” Her springy curls, dyed as blonde as a canary’s wings, were always as perfect as her bright red painted lips. “Bless their hearts.” She pursed her lips. “But for the grace of God . . .”
The other women nodded their agreement.
“How are things looking for the Memory Festival?” Thelma asked in a few minutes, holding out an empty needle to me. I took it and handed her a threaded one. Threading needles for these ladies constituted a good part of my job at these meetings.
“Well,” I said, “except for the possibility of a downpour soaking everyone and police officers getting shot by an unknown sniper, everything’s peachy.”
“Lordy, we’ve been a-watchin’ that on the TV,” Martha said, shaking her head, her eyes not leaving the quilt top as her needle rocked in and out. “Who do you think it might be?”
“Some kook hopped up on reefer, no doubt,” Janet said.
“Listen to you,” Pat said, poking at Janet with her elbow. “Reefer. For heaven’s sakes, you sound like a hippie. Remember back when reefers were refrigerators?”
“Now you’re really dating us,” Janet said. “Isn’t it funny how words change meaning?”
“How’s Gabe taking it, sweetie?” Vynelle asked me. “He must be very upset.”
I concentrated on threading the short needle in my hand, thinking that I needed to get my eyes checked. It seemed to be getting harder to see the eye with every visit. “Oh, he’s . . . you know . . . he’s hanging in there.” I stabbed the thread at the eye of the needle, missing it. I stuck the thread in my mouth again, wetting it, then trying once more. My jaw tightened in frustration; my eyesight blurred. I should have threaded the needles at home.
“Benni.” Vynelle’s scratchy voice was gentle.
“Yes?” I said, concentrating on my needle.
“Sweetie, look at me.”
I swallowed, resisting the urge to wipe my eyes before looking up at Vynelle. All six women stopped quilting and watched me.
“Is everything okay?” Martha asked.
I didn’t want to talk about it, but lying was out of the question. Though I wouldn’t go into detail, I decided to be honest. “He is having some difficulty sleeping. Nightmares about Vietnam. It’s . . . it’s been hard . . . on both of us.” I stuck the newly threaded needle into the large apple pincushion. “I think the sniper attacks set him off. Well, set off the post-traumatic stress.”
Eleanor nodded, her wrinkled face grave. She’d been a high school history teacher. American history was her specialty. “That’s what they call it now. Back in my daddy’s time, World War I, they called it combat fatigue. Then in World War II, they gave it a fancier name—gross stress reaction.” She clucked under her breath. “The men just called it shell shock. You know what they called it in the Civil War? Soldier’s heart.”
“Soldier’s heart?” I repeated. That name seemed especially poignant.
“No matter what they call it,” Eleanor said, “it’s hard on the soldier, hard on his family.”
“Or hers,” Thelma said, whose oldest granddaughter was an air force pilot.
“Don’t I know it,” shy Miss Winnie Dalton said, speaking up for the first time. Her thin white hair was pulled back with a red velvet ribbon. Delicate blue veins crisscrossed the thin skin of her temples. She and her late husband, Frank, had owned Dalton’s Deli, a popular sandwich shop and ice cream parlor down by the college. While attending Cal Poly in the ’70s, Elvia, Jack and I used to buy ice cream there every afternoon, no matter what the weather. Jack used to call their pastrami burgers “manna from God.” Miss Winnie, which was what everyone called her because it was what Frank called her, always gave Jack an extra scoop of ice cream because he’d replace the heavy five-gallon ice cream containers for her when Frank or their son, Billy, was busy.
“Miss Winnie was a nurse in World War II,” Thelma said. “She’s seen lots of battle fatigue.”
I looked over at her in surprise. “Miss Winnie, I had no idea you were a war nurse!”
She blushed, looking pleased. “Glad I can still surprise someone. It wasn’t as romantic as it sounds. Those were hard times. Though I did not know him yet, Frank was serving over in Sicily. He repaired airplanes.” She reached over and patted my hand. “We met at the VA hospital, realized we were from the same state, got married shortly afterward. Frank had a real hard time.” She looked down at the quilt and started stitching again. “His job was to clean the airplanes when they came back from combat. One time he had to pull a young tail gunner from the back of an airplane that was all shot up. He had to crawl down this long tunnel opening to fetch the young man. When he grabbed under the boy’s arms and pulled, only half of him came out. Frank realized then the boy had been shot clean in two. Said he backed out of there quick as a frightened rat. Once he hit the tarmac, he vomited his guts out.”
“That’s horrible,” I said, my stomach queasy. “How did they get the man out?”
She looked up at me, blinked her pale eyes. “Why, after Frank was done throwing up, he had to go back in and get the rest of him so they could bury the boy. It was his job. Said it was the hardest thing he ever did in his life. He wrote a letter to the boy’s mama but never told her the full story, just said her son was a true hero. When he returned from the war, he never allowed fireworks near our house. He hated Fourth of July. Always went camping by himself on that day, as far away from the celebrations as he could.”
The rest of the women made sympathetic sounds.
“What did you all do?” I asked, gazing around at them. “I mean, how did you cope?”
They glanced at each other, their mouths thin lines. Pat spoke first.
“Each of us had different experiences,” she said. “But mostly we all coped the same way. You just push through it the best you can. Most men saw combat back then. It affected them in different ways. Mostly we just let them work it out on their own.”
“When Billy got back from Vietnam,” Miss Winnie said, “he was all torn up, couldn’t sleep, was drinking too much. That set Frank to remembering what happened to him in the war. With two of them wandering the house in the middle of the night, drinking and carrying on, it felt like I was living in a loony bin.”
“Never ends,” Thelma said with a sigh.
I faced Miss Winnie. “What did you do?”
“I flat-out nagged them into getting help. Frank didn’t want to talk to the psychologist fella, but I told him that it was up to him to set a good example for Billy, that he could not expect his son to pull himself together if his own father wasn’t willing to do the same thing. They went to the same doctor, and it was the best thing that ever happened to all of us.” She nodded her head, remembering. “And I got help too. Found a real sweet doctor who helped me cope. Just let me talk and talk and cry and cry. Dr. Jean Malcolm. She passed on a few years ago, God bless her.” Miss Winnie shifted in her wheelchair. “You just put one foot in front of the other and keep walking.
You’d be surprised at what a body can survive. Excuse me, ladies, but I must go powder my nose. Don’t tell any good gossip until I get back.” She slowly wheeled herself out of the room.
After she was gone, Janet said, “Listen to her. Miss Winnie knows what she’s talking about.”
I picked up another needle to thread. “I know it’s good advice, but . . .”
“No, I mean she really knows what she’s talking about. She wasn’t just a nurse during the war. She was stationed in the Philippines when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. She was in a prison camp for three years.”
“I had no idea.” How could I have known someone almost all my life as I had Miss Winnie and not known something so important?
“She doesn’t talk about it much,” Martha said. “She saw the worst that men can do as well as the best, but she didn’t let the bad become more important than the good.”
When Miss Winnie returned, I couldn’t help sneaking glances at her, trying to discern what it was that enabled a person to survive the atrocities she’d experienced. Someone walking through Oak Terrace would likely look at her and think, There’s a nice old lady, somebody’s sweet gramma who probably won ribbons at the county fair for her angel food cakes.
It would probably never occur to them that they were looking at a hero.
At eight thirty, we decided to call it a night. After assuring the ladies that I’d be fine cleaning things up, I set the quilt frame on its side at the back of the room and tidied up the coffee area, putting the leftover brownies in the refrigerator after marking the box “Property of Coffin Star Quilt Guild—Eat At Your Own Risk.” Beneath the words, I sketched a smiling skull and crossbones. With the Coffin Star quilt wrapped up in an old pillowcase, I headed for my car.
In the pink and green flowered lobby, I ran into Van Baxter.
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