Ada Unraveled

by Barbara Sullivan

  “Okay, fine. Have it your way, Was my way, we’d leave sleeping dogs lie,” she barked. “Don’t know how this is so important, anyway.”

  A few moments passed in silence and furtive glances.

  As tired as I was, I knew where this was leading. They’d talked about it a few hours ago. For my research skills. Because I’m a PI.

  So perhaps there’s something here they want me to investigate. Perhaps Jake’s death.

  “And?” Geraldine coaxed again.

  With another great sigh, Victoria turned her furious gaze on me. “You wanted to know why you’re here. Well, this is why. You and your husband are why. Ada left a comforter for us, and half the world knows it thanks to that fool boy of hers. And these fool women all think the quilt contains secrets, like they’ve been talking about all night.” She dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand, and sat breathing heavily.

  “What fool boy?” Gerry said, echoing my own confusion. I guess I wasn’t the only one who was out of the loop on Ada’s family tree.

  “He delivered it at her overdue funeral. Walked down the aisle and draped the thing over her coffin like a blanket of flowers. Like it was an American flag that you drape over soldiers,” Andrea said, a bitter smile twisting her mouth.

  ‘Her overdue funeral?’ Not Jake’s? And Gerry hadn’t attended.

  Gerry said. “I thought you said the quilt was discovered in her home. And…when was this funeral service?”

  Gerry leaned across me and looked questioningly at Hannah. Hannah shook her head.

  Okay, so Hannah hadn’t attended the funeral service either.

  But Andrea and Elixchel had. And maybe Ruth? Hard to tell, she was mostly rocking.

  Andrea laughed bitterly.

  “What could you find amusing about Ada’s death, Andrea?” snapped Victoria, before sinking back heavily in her chair.

  Ada’s death. That was her name.

  They were talking about the woman I’d replaced—the one who had died at least three months ago? So…her funeral had been delayed? My head was reeling with the surprises and secrets suddenly coming to light about this mysterious family.

  Ruth murmured, “Vicky….”

  “I didn’t find any of it humorous, Victoria!” a suddenly serious Andrea snapped back. “Particularly the part about you people not having the decency to invite him to his mother’s funeral in the first place. And his grandpa Jake’s, for that matter. Did you and your daughters ever find out where he’d gone that night? Do you even know if Eddie saw his grandpa die, yet? This could have been damaging to him. He’s had an unbelievably hard life as it is.” Her face grew darker with each accusatory question.

  At last, another name. Eddie. Ada’s boy.

  “Andrea! What are you saying? Who is Eddie?” Gerry.

  Good grief! The layers of secrets in this group were astounding. Gerry, who seemed to be the instigator of the inquiry, was seeking clarity.

  It almost sounded as if no one here knew the whole truth of the thing they were dancing around. Except for Victoria. Victoria obviously knew more than the rest of them.

  But if that was true, why didn’t she just tell them all? And avoid all the intrusion of…that woman, as she so warmly thinks of me.

  Andrea ignored Gerry and said to me instead, “You should have seen him, Rachel. Soaked by the rains, half-covered with mud. He looked like a lost ghost come to honor his dead mother’s soul. A grown man, but…like he was going to carry her soul off on some magic…quilt…didn’t even have the sense to cover his head with the wrapped quilt…protected his mom’s quilt instead of himself….”

  Good grief. Andrea was about to cry.

  “Dead…mother? Ada? She had a boy?” Gerry sputtered in exasperation.

  Victoria sighed raggedly again, her inhale almost a sob in reverse. Would she die of a heart attack before telling me whatever it was the others wanted her to say? Her distress was so great it filled the huge room.

  Finally I could stand the cat-and-mouse game no longer.

  I said, “If this is so hard for Victoria maybe one of you could explain for her. For starters, you could begin by telling me about the woman I replaced and how she died.”

  Victoria stood. On wobbly legs. Straightening her ancient back with firm resolve. Sticking her age-softened chin forward.

  “Ada was my daughter-in-law,” Victoria said. “My son’s wife. And you are a pack of…a….” Victoria staggered. Elixchel caught her, and helped her painstakingly creep from the room. An elder tortoise taking its leave. And then Ruth got up and followed her sister and Elixchel out into the hall.

  The others pushed away from the unfinished work to linger near the fire, stare out the window. Granted, I was exhausted, and perhaps overreacting, but what the devil was wrong with these women? How could they keep such weighty secrets from each other? My outraged sense of how normal families should relate to one another was warring with my professional curiosity about this family and its two recent deaths.

  After more long moments Elixchel returned.

  Tears were now slipping down Andrea’s face, an amazing sight given my heretofore feelings about her. She whipped them away, impatiently.

  Elixchel said, “I put her to bed, she’s exhausted. And grief-stricken.” She cast a reproving glance at Geraldine, who had sat down again, her questions unanswered.

  “Look, I thought she might take the lead in this. We all did, remember? We decided if we approached this whole thing slowly, during the night, leading Victoria forward, that she’d eventually join us. That she’d eventually see that we simply must get to the bottom of whatever happened to Ada. ” Gerry looked around at the others for support. But there was none.

  She got up again and moved to the fireplace. She looked angry and hurt.

  Hannah said, “We both pushed for this, Gerry. No one is blaming you. I mean, I didn’t know Ada had a son either until Andrea told me he showed up with the quilt. I’m sorry that none of us thought to include you in that information. The funeral—for both Jake and Ada—were for immediate family only, as I understand it.

  “The fact that we’re being kept in the dark about so much of the Stowall family history is why we’ve decided to go forward with this…” Her eyes slid to mine and back to the others. Finally she continued, “…with this investigation.”

  Hannah stopped, as if to wait for an objection to her use of the word. There was none, so at least the group was on board for this much.

  Except, I thought Abigail was agitated now.

  Elixchel said, “And I agreed to it.”

  “Me too.” Abigail said. “But my mom….”

  Thus the agitation I’d noted. Abigail’s mom wasn’t supporting this ‘investigation.’

  I said, “What about your mom?” I was thinking about how her mother was a nurse. Maybe I needed to know where she worked.

  Abigail of the deer-in-the-headlights eyes said, “She isn’t too happy about us…hiring a detective.” She looked back down at her sewing. Embarrassed?

  “Speaking of mothers,” Elixchel said. “You should ask your mother again, Gerry, since she once quilted with the group. And you should ask Ruth, Hannah. Victoria is just not…willing, or able to. I mean, we didn’t know Ada had a son either until he showed up with the quilt, right Andrea?” She looked at Andrea for confirmation, but Andrea looked away.

  She’d known. At least, she’d known for longer than the rest of them.

  Hannah said, “I’ve asked my mom about Ada, she won’t talk any more than Victoria will. It’s like that generation refuses to talk about personal problems. The bigger the problem, the tighter they clam up.”

  I turned to Hannah. “How big a problem is this? How exactly did Ada die? What specifically are you asking me to investigate?”

  Hannah glanced at the others. “We don’t know how Ada died. Her death was unattended. She was cremated before an autopsy could be performed….” She trailed off.

  So one generation was stonewalling th
e next. Not unusual, if the secrets were too hurtful for them to revisit.

  Curiosity battled exhaustion. Exhaustion won. “I can barely stay awake, ladies. I am willing to follow up on this with you, but it has to wait until I’ve gotten some sleep. What do you need from me right now?”

  “Elixchel, go get Ada’s quilt and let’s do this,” Hannah said.

  “Where is it?” Elixchel.

  “Where we left it, fool woman, hanging in Luke’s closet,” Victoria shouted from her bedroom, her ancient voice surprisingly strong again. Her ears were obviously pretty good, too.

  Luke? Mark’s brother, noted on Victoria’s quilt?

  So maybe Luke was the one who married Ada.

  Elixchel went off to retrieve the quilt and I asked one of the myriad questions I had.

  “Is Luke Ada’s husband? Where is he now and how does he figure into this situation?”

  “He’s…missing. Since…Ada…was found. Maybe before.” Andrea.

  Good. She was finally talking again.

  “Which was when?”

  “Ada was found a week ago, during the firestorms.” Andrea.

  “How old was Ada and how did she die?”

  Hannah answered. “I think she was about sixty-two. We don’t know how she died. A physician was called in, I believe he is distantly related to Jake and Victoria, he examined her body, said she appeared to have died from complications of influenza, and she was cremated within the day.

  “But…given that Luke had disappeared before she was found, and certain…rumors some of us have heard about domestic violence, we thought this should be looked into further,” she concluded.

  “What about her son, Eddie?” I asked. “Can he shed any light onto his mother’s death?”

  Andrea answered. “Eddie can’t. He’s…confused.”

  Getting answers out of these women, even when they were asking for my help, was an immensely frustrating task, and one that I was frankly no longer up for.

  When I’d stood to leave the quilting room and this long night of secrets, I wondered if my legs would get me to the front door.

  At the front door I wondered if my head would get me and my car home.

  And, at the front door, Hannah told me a bit more about my new assignment.

  “There’s a book on the Stowall family in the Carlsbad library. It’s some sort of genealogy written by John Stowall. You might find that helpful.”

  “And here’s a copy of the family genealogy. You might want to look at that first. I’m sorry about…all this. The way it transpired. But….” Gerry pressed taped and folded sheets of a computer printout on top of the pile in my arms. I pulled it against my body, shielding it behind the quilt. The rain was just a sprinkle now, but soon there would be more.

  “I appreciate how painful this has been for all of you. I only wish I’d understood where this night was headed in the beginning.”

  Right at that moment, I was concentrating on getting in my car and driving for the better part of an hour. I was wishing there was some travel god who could teleport me directly into my warm bed.

  “Goodbye, Rachel. We’ll see you in a month, if not sooner,” Elixchel called from the kitchen doorway. She sent a tentative wave, similar to the feeble one I’d waved at her, way back in the beginning of this long night.

  Chapter 12: Road Rage

  I turned in a weary daze and chose the best path through the mud to my car. They’d given me paper towels to clean my shoes, but I decided it was best to just take them off and place the mud caked Mocs on the floor on top of the towels. Ada’s carefully folded quilt lay on the passenger’s seat on top of the papers Gerry had just given me as I prepared to drive away.

  As the road passed under my wheels, I tried to lift my spirits with thoughts of how clean the landscape looked after this good washing. Then I tried the radio, but the first news station I came to was blaring out the muddy details of a massive slide in LA. I glanced at the beautiful quilt I’d been entrusted with. What complex and masterful work. As I wondered about the woman who had created it, I noticed a huge white truck with some sort of device attached to its front bumper looming in my rear mirror. Elevated abnormally on those wacky monster truck springs, it was so close I was mostly looking back at its undercarriage—with a cruel bumper above, a bumper made of metal pipes and a flat panel of scarred sheet metal. It was a bulbar, wasn’t it? I wondered briefly where that tidbit of fascinating information had been buried. No doubt some long-ago reference question was the source.

  I glanced up at the mirror again. What? Were we playing Red-Light, Green-Light? The truck was much closer. The narrow two-lane road curved before me. I sped up a bit. Jacked-up guy was probably late for work.

  The monster truck edged closer on its ludicrously oversized wheels. I wished I’d called Matt to pick me up. At least the rude pig was keeping me awake. The white truck lurched forward and faded back. What was with him? It was as if he was working up the courage to….

  The monster truck leapt forward again—to within inches! I couldn’t go any faster, the road was too curvy and I was too tired to navigate safely as it was. I rolled my window down all the way as I spied a slight widening in the road, and signaled him to pass, easing my wagon closer to the shoulder.

  A blaring noise drove my adrenaline level up a notch. The monster truck had a monster horn.

  He sprang at me again, definitely threatening me, and this time he didn’t pull back. Carefully, I thrust a searching hand into my bag, looking for my phone. Oh, no! It was off. From the bee. I pressed and held the red button and waited for the stupid thing to jingle its way toward a connection. I needed help. This guy was obviously on cocaine or speed or something.

  Bang! He rammed the back of my car!

  I grabbed the wheel with both hands, letting my phone fly solo to the passenger side floor.

  Bang! He rammed me again. I held on for dear life, breathing like I was in a marathon. He was pushing me now, connected, like a runaway train! I barely made it through the next curve in the road. My mind was racing. Where was the next town? This guy was deliberately driving me off the road!

  We flew through another curve, still connected.

  Where was Escondido? How close was I? The truck pushed my speed up to eighty! I had to slow us down, so I gently but firmly began applying my brakes--praying the old Ford could hold against the powerful force hell-bent on killing me. The truck had taken on a persona in my mind. As if it was driving itself.

  I wished I’d kept on my Mocs, my sock-covered braking foot was killing me. I’d managed to lower our linked-speed down to sixty-two—but my brakes would need to be replaced. Then I spotted another sharp curve dead ahead and braced myself. At the last second I saw an opportunity to rid myself of the damnable ram truck.

  As we entered the turn, I switched my aching foot from the brake to the gas pedal and pressed it to the floor. My good old wagon jumped for joy, quickly sending my speed up over seventy. The wagon took the curve on two wheels, rising up off the pavement before settling down as the curve straightened. Then, I watched as the Evil Bulbar Truck flew off the road straight into a field, throwing up clots of mud as it ground to a halt.

  Matt was standing in the garage waiting for me, cell phone in hand, when I finally made it home, his face full of concern. That’s when the tears came.

  PART TWO

  material evidence

  Chapter 13: Mathew

  Matthew Lyons, lover of golf, gardening, and all things Marine, led me upstairs to our bedroom. He helped me strip off my sweats then stripped off his own clothes. I was still shaking, though the tears had stopped. He steered me into the oversized shower stall.

  He turned the hot water up as high as we could bear, and we washed each other. You do my back and I’ll do yours.

  I loved these together showers. One of our great rituals. His hands caressed my body gently, slipping through the water, blending with the water, water hands. We should do this every day, I thought sleepil
y. Then remembered we usually did. For lots of reasons, but this morning it was for emotional comfort.

  Well, it was always for that.

  Wisdom our German shepherd stood bravely by with his nose pressed up against the glass door, whimpering. His black and tan coat was still gleaming from his last bath. Normally he stayed as far away from the shower stall as he could because in the winter that was where I washed him, but he was worried about me now. Dogs knew.

  Matt was putting me under the bed covers. Dreamily, I watched him shoo Wisdom out of the bedroom. I heard the dog slump against the door with a loud complaint and then I fell asleep.

  After five hours I could sleep no more. It was just as well, I would be up all night again tonight if I slept any longer.

  I was experiencing bee-lag instead of jet-lag. Carrying a mug of hot tea and still wearing my favorite terry robe, I went into the spare bedroom to glance at Ada’s quilt again. Matt must have spread it out on the bed while I slept. Now he was out in the garden. The quilt made me speechless it was so beautiful.

  I gazed at it and sipped as my head cleared from the fog of sleep, and I realized two things: first, that this group of women had wanted to get to know me, and wanted me to get to know them, before they hired me; and second, none of them were willing to talk about what they knew of Ada Stowall and her death--at least, not in front of each other.

  So the third question became, would they talk to me individually? I thought my best shot would be through Hannah and Gerry.

  Then I remembered that Geraldine Patrone hadn’t even known that Eddie Stowall, the son of Ada, was still alive. Maybe because she lived in a fantasy world with a billionaire miles from Victoria and Ada’s world. So maybe my best shot was only Hannah.

  I briefly wondered why the other women present during the long night didn’t seem as accessible as these two women. Maybe because Gerry and Hannah were closer to my age. Maybe because four of the group had been separated from me by several widening feet as the evening had progressed and so most of my chatting had been done with the ladies on either side of me.