Widow's Row

by Lala Corriere

  I didn’t want to hear the now impaling sound of the man’s name. I had believed in my client’s innocence, I practiced sound law, and I got him off on all four counts of child molestation. It sickened me.

  Adam rode along with me back to the airport. We both enjoyed the early morning drive, sipping Starbucks coffee and reading the daily papers in the back of the stretch.

  “Jesus, Adam! What are we going to do about this?” I threw the section of the newspaper on his lap. They ran the article on the front page of the social pages, along with a photograph of us outside The Mayflower Hotel.

  Adam perused the article. The smile broadened across his face with each word he read. “It’s great, babe. Great exposure, and the free publicity is sure to piss off my opponents. Maybe they even put something in the Metro Section,” he said, scooping up the rest of the paper.

  “No, Adam. The date. They printed that date you gave them. They’re not going to let it go.”

  “What date?”

  “October third. They’re saying that’s our wedding date.”

  “Because it is. We’re getting hitched October third.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  No More Sprinkle Cookies

  My trip back to Trinidad was long but uneventful, except for the rage running a marathon through my blood-pulsing body.

  Adam didn’t bother to explain why we had to get married in October. Instead, he took one phone call after another all the way to the airport. He dropped me off at the curbside with a peck on my forehead, still engaged in conversation. At first I found it all amusing, but my amusement transformed into anger as I began to realize he gave me no say as to the day I would marry.

  Once back in Trinidad, I drove straight to the hospital. It wasn’t exactly the kind of mood stabilizer I needed, but I had made a promise. With release papers alongside his apparent oath of silence, I got Dad back in his own home, made an introduction of sorts to his new home nurse, and together the two of us somehow got my father safely into a portable hospital bed I rented for his main-floor study.

  Stepping down from his front porch, I caught sight of the old Toyota parked outside his neighbor’s garage. Naomi Gaines. When Kate had insisted she could help me track down Erin McGinnis, I called her. She never called me back.

  After three knocks on the door, she opened it a crack.

  “Mrs. Gaines, is anything wrong?”

  “No, my dear. Of course not. And you? How’s your dad?” The door opened a few more inches.

  “He’s home now, with a full time nurse, and a speech therapist will be coming in three times a week.” Why, I don’t know, since I’m supposed to believe he’s not talking.

  “That’s lovely, dear. Now, if you don’t mind...”

  “...Mrs. Gaines, I wonder if I can’t ask you a quick question. I’m trying to find a friend of my dad’s.”

  “Not right now, dear. I’m sorry, but you’ve caught me at a bad time.”

  The door closed and I heard the deadbolt screeching against the frozen metal chamber of the lock.

  No more sprinkle cookies from Naomi.

  Before driving to the ranch, I wandered over to The Lost Cat to wish Kate a belated happy new year. I found her and Jennie basking in the late afternoon sun on her front porch swing. A heaping pile of luggage sat near the steps.

  “Jennie’s leaving me,” Kate blurted out. “I hate this part of my damn business.”

  Jennie put her arm around Kate, smothering her in a sea of pink cashmere. My eyes drank in the sadness.

  “I’m not leaving you, dear. You’ll always be inside my heart,” Jennie said. They both started weeping. She turned to me, “You see, I’ve finished all my surgeries. I’m as female as I’m going to get, for now.

  “This isn’t easy for me either,” Jennie continued between sobs. “All of what’s new in me wants to hide out in that room upstairs forever, and never face my past. I’m a tranny, but all of what was me is gone. I have to go home and offer up a lot of explanations to people that don’t exactly want to hear them.”

  My own emotions overwhelmed me. They were of regret and embarrassment. Somewhere I had my own hidden prejudices. I hadn’t taken more time to know and understand Jennie. I felt a shudder of humiliation, lowering my eyes to the floor and watching as Jennie’s foot controlled the swing’s slow, even swaying back and forth.

  Kate looked up and brushed away a stream of tears and runny mascara. I watched as she methodically reached to the side table and grabbed her glass of booze, prepared to kill off the pain the only way she knew how.

  Jennie tilted her head. The angle caught the sun and I could see she was very much a woman, happy in her own new skin. She must have seen me observing her.

  “Oh, sweethearts,” she said to both of us, “I’ll see you again. Be happy for me. I’ve found my pussy at The Lost Cat.”

  We both cracked up.

  “And let me tell you, it took a lot of balls!” she continued.

  Her words were funny, but I realized how right she was. I nodded my head and smiled. The woman had balls.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Breecie,” Kate said. “I have a Christmas gift for both of you girls.” She took a swig of scotch, placed it back on the wicker table, and slipped into the house.

  “You gotta take care of her, Breecie. Some folks around here have the idea Ms. Kate takes care of all of us girls, but I gotta tell you, that isn’t the case. It’s the other way around in this house. We dish out more advice to that poor woman than she dishes out the booze.”

  “Everyone loves her, and thinks she’s the bell of the ball,” I said. “The life of the party.”

  “That’s right, love. That’s exactly right,” Jennie said. “And no one wants to take the party home with them. Not really.”

  Kate cast open the front door, barely able to contain the bundle of activity in her arms. Two teensy red kittens bobbed and ducked between each other, then sought shelter against Kate’s tiny body.

  “This one’s a little girl, Jennie. And she’s all yours. You go, Lady Red,” Kate said, slipping the squiggly ball of fur into Jennie’s unsuspecting hands.

  “She’s worth a small fortune. You can’t just give her away,” Jennie said.

  “Oh, yes I can. Journey wants it that way, I’m sure,” Kate said, plopping the other feline into my lap.

  “This is a little boy, Breecie. He’s yours. I figure you need a man in your life while you’re away from your fiancé.”

  Oh, god. I had a fiancé. Nothing better to get Kate’s mind off her sadness then to start whining about Adam and my impending wedding. But I did something I normally don’t do. I let it go.

  Pulling up to the ranch, I spotted Rudy by the chinchillas. I parked the Jeep and walked over to him, with the kitten tucked in my arms.

  “What you got there, Senorita? Ahhh. Un gatito. Muy Buen!”

  “Kate gave him to me as a Christmas present.”

  “You keep him inside. Lots of hungry animals out here.”

  “What do you think Ari will say?”

  “Nothing. We don’t tell him. He doesn’t go snooping, Senorita, and he is gone. Left me in charge,” he boasted.

  “I see. He’s gone for a while?”

  “Big business deal. Gone to Denver. You keep cat just fine,” he said. “I’m in charge and I say okay.”

  “Thanks.” I slipped the kitten under my jacket. “What are you doing with the chinchillas, Rudy?”

  “Weekly dusting. Keeps them clean and healthy.”

  “They seem to like it,” I said, watching the rodents roll around in the mixture. Unlike the bulls I’d seen, the chinchillas seemed healthy. “You take good care of these cages, Rudy.”

  “Not cages. Called runs. Allows for male to breed with up to eight females at a time.”

  “Wow. Worse than Washington,” I laughed.

  Rudy looked at me quizzically and smiled.

  I smiled back. Something I’d been doing a lot of lately in spite of a crusty
father, his evident infidelity, and the daunting questions I had after finding the hidden gun. And a demanding fiancé who didn’t understand why I cared.

  When I returned to my third level apartment I found a shiny black box propped against my door.

  Adam! How could I doubt Adam? He’d explain why he had to give the press a wedding date, my wedding date, and it would all be okay. October third would be fine, damn it. October third and I would be his wife. It’s what I wanted.

  Balancing the kitten and the box in one hand, I unlocked my apartment door. The space was musty, but more inviting than I had remembered. Letting him down on the floor, my yet-to-be-named kitten demonstrated his curious nature, frolicking around area rugs, jumping on chairs, and generally announcing he was pleased with his new digs.

  My own curious nature called me back over to the black box, and I ripped off the equally noir ribbons.

  The dried black petals of the dead rose fell apart as I lifted it out of the box. I opened the small notecard.

  A rose as dead and crisp as a scorched wolf spider.

  And you, a pretty Rose. For now.

  Go back where you came from.

  The dead rose sickened me. But there was something far more nefarious than the gesture of a menacing gift. I had to stare at the writing. The words. Threatening. Maybe a harmless joke. But too close to home.

  On the second line of prose, if you can call it that, the word rose was capitalized, as a name. No one but a handful of people knew my middle name was Rose.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Paranoia

  Adam and I never argued as much as we did the weeks after I left D.C. to return to Trinidad. The brawling started the day I left, but my fiancé didn’t even know it.

  A single dead rose thrust me against perdition’s door. Who would do that? And why? All I could think to do was call my hero, Adam, certain that his assuasive voice would shield me from harm. He didn’t answer his home phone or cell. I finally gave up when it was well past midnight in Washington.

  My soliloquy began by cursing Adam for not being there for me. Then anger succumbed to fear’s gripping chokehold as my mind raced to make sense of the not so munificent gift. Who would have placed the dead rose at my door? Why? Who knew my middle name was Rose? Someone my dad knew? No one in Trinidad knew me!

  The villa was remote, and since approaching vehicles could be heard driving up the dirt road that ran for almost a mile, the main doors were often left unlocked. Even being a Washington girl, I never thought twice about it.

  Except for my door. I now locked my door, even while living in the most tranquil setting I could ever imagine.

  Ari could scare me away if he wanted to. He had the master key, but Rudy said Ari had been in Denver for days. I searched my belongings. Nothing was disturbed. No one appeared to have been inside.

  I had to calm down and think straight. I was a coveted tenant. Why would my money-hungry landlord want me gone?

  Then there was Rudy himself. But Rudy’s nature was as comforting as a chicken potpie on a frigid winter’s night, and he was as reliable as a Bic pen. Not Rudy.

  The night air was brisk, but far from cold. I opened my windows a sliver to freshen the stale rooms. The faint guitar music floated up through my apartment.

  I’d heard Jonathan play on several occasions, often after dark. Sometimes I’d even spot him in the main courtyard when he would likely think no one else would be around. He was a mystery man, hiding something, or at least, hiding himself. Maybe what I thought was a shroud of sadness was really something more sinister.

  What was happening to me? The woman who trusts.

  The next morning I reached Adam at his office. I told him about my delivery.

  His reassurance came in the form of a reprimand. “I’m telling you, Breecie, you need to quit this insanity. Your dad is okay and home with a nurse, you’re trying to unearth ghosts that are dead and gone, and now you have someone making threats against you. Hell, you didn’t get threats when you handled that Anderson case of yours.”

  “That was a low blow.”

  “And, let me clarify for you, it’s someone that knows where you live. I’m warning you...”

  “...I’ve already been warned, Adam.” I looked across at the thorny rose stem sticking out from the trashcan. “What about the private investigator?”

  Adam informed me our guy came up empty and closed the case. “Do you hear me? You’ve wasted his time, so by god, you’re wasting yours. Just stay out of your dad’s past affairs and leave that stupid town. Besides, you have a wedding to plan.”

  “I have my calendar in order. I’m hiring a wedding planner to take care of everything. For now I can stay right here, do some writing, be close to Dad, and yes—do a little more snooping around. Anyway, I’ve also signed a lease, and this isn’t exactly the kind of place I can sublet.”

  I could almost hear the pulse throbbing in his throat. “What are we talking about? A couple months? It’s chicken feed! I’ll buy you out of the damn lease. Just come home.”

  Later in the conversation and after both of us calmed down, I found out that Adam orchestrated my wedding date to obtain maximum press coverage. Squeezing it in between Adam’s campaign stops, the date was significant, at least in the history of politics. October third marked the reunification of Germany. Also White House Storm; the seize in Moscow. But that’s world history. Why would that be so damn important to Adam?

  “What the hell is this about?” I shouted. “Do you want me to buy a red, white and blue wedding gown?”

  That outburst resulted in more fighting. Adam insisted I make myself available for more photo opportunities and interviews. I resisted.

  His curt voice shot out, “I warned you what life would be like during this campaign. And it’s only going to be more demanding after we dance our little victory waltz.”

  Just before noon on Tuesday, I’d been at my keyboard for hours when I rose to stretch the kinks out of my legs. Coming up off a deep plié, I looked out the bay window and across the awe-inspiring valley toward town. The sun was losing ground to a gathering of chilly gray clouds laden with snow, making the bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle coming up the drive appear like a welcome streak of dancing spring marigolds.

  I waved from the window. Kate jumped out of the Bug and motioned me to meet her downstairs.

  “What are you doing out here?” She’d gathered a loaf of French bread, a hunk of cheese, and a bottle of red wine.

  “You forgot?” Her gaze fell to the floor.

  I shrugged my shoulders, baffled as to why she would be so dismayed.

  “It’s Tuesday, Breecie. I’m here to meet your roomie.”

  “Damn!” I’d forgotten I told Kate about Jonathan Marasco’s shopping habits. What I hadn’t mentioned were my arising suspicions surrounding the origin of the dead flower welcoming me back to Trinidad. Maybe he was involved.

  “Weather’s coming in. Let’s go inside to the great room,” I offered.

  “He won’t disappear through a side entrance?”

  Her desperate tone sent a cringe down my back. I couldn’t imagine how dispiriting it was to be looking for a polished prince in a small town.

  “No. He’ll come through the front door. Ari keeps the garage for himself.”

  I marveled as Kate unraveled the scarf wrapped around her small waist, whipped it in the air, and laid it out as our makeshift picnic blanket over Ari’s wood floors. She pulled out toile napkins from a daypack, along with wine glasses, a corkscrew, and a cheese-cutter. What seemed like an impromptu lunch date for me, Kate must have been planning for days.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Guess I imagined us lying out on the front lawn, a picture of irresistible feminine romance. Pretty dumb for January.”

  “Listen, Kate. I don’t know anything about this guy except he wasn’t too friendly when I met him.”

  “Yeah, well Rudy keeps his eye on him, and Rudy tells his Rosa. Every morning when I get downstairs, Rosa�
�s ready to hold a briefing with me, only there’s nothing to tell.” Kate batted lush lashes across her chocolate eyes. “I got my hopes on this one. Hell, I can’t find a man on the Internet, and you have one hiding out in the basement.” She uncorked the bottle with a twisting pop and giggled like a young girl as she poured the aged wine.

  I told Kate about the dead rose at my door, but I didn’t mention the note that evidenced someone knew my middle name.