Widow's Row

by Lala Corriere

  “We’d like to see something extravagant,” Kate purred. I was content modeling a variety of mink hats.

  The man presented her with a stroller-length sable.

  Kate giggled, then pooh-poohed, and asked to see something more lush.

  Getting scent of a no-limit charge card, the man winked and excused himself to the coveted back room.

  “I can feel the seduction,” Kate said. “He’s back there, probably coming in his pants with excitement.”

  Minutes later he returned with his showcase fur—a hooded floor length chinchilla.

  Kate wrinkled her nose, offering a raspy laugh, and hand-in-hand she pranced us out of the store. All the while I found myself guessing as to what she found so funny.

  “You know, I could have gone for that sable, if I had the money, of course. For one thing, I don’t know what the hell a sable is. You know, what the little guys might look like when they’re alive. But that man had to go and bring out the chinchilla, and I’ll be damned, we both know exactly what those cuddly little darlings look like. Can you imagine how many of them they had to slaughter to make one arm on that coat?”

  Ding. Ding. Ding. The flashback might as well have been a neon light flashing across Kate’s forehead. In one of his letters, Dad promised his mistress a chinchilla coat.

  I filed the memory under ‘dad-murder’. Easily retrievable.

  “Kate, I have a detour to make before we fly home.” My rental car was already past the airport and beyond the town limits as I headed down the valley. Kate had her eyes closed, oblivious to my driving.

  “I’m not on any tight schedule,” she said.

  “I want to go to Redstone. I’ve been in contact with your parents, and your daughter’s expecting us.”

  I wouldn’t let Kate smoke in the car, so instead she chewed her nails and bit her lips. Thirty minutes later, and Kate with no nails left, we pulled into the tiny town of Redstone. Our first stop was a gift boutique, where she purchased her daughter a birthday present.

  The yellow brick home sat nestled against a small cathedral of pine trees. A white picket fence surrounded the property, in need of a fresh coat of paint, but quaint. Kate and I stood on the porch for some time before she finally rang the bell. Excruciating time passed by before a burly silver-haired man opened the door. His eyes speared both mine and Kate’s, like a deep-sea angler out for barracuda. He said nothing, but moved to the side of the door so we could enter.

  “Mr. Vander Ark. I’m Breecie Lemay.”

  “I know who you are, little missy.” He looked over at Kate, who flinched at the sound of his voice. “Why are you here?”

  Kate took the small gift-wrapped box from her shoulder bag. “I want to give this to Macayla for her birthday.”

  “Why not mail it like all the others?”

  Kate looked at me, cleared her throat, and managed a feeble reply. “I want to see my daughter.”

  “No good can come from this.” The stern warning came from around the corner. Kate’s mother untied her apron, folded it in thirds, and placed it inside a tidy buffet drawer. She didn’t look up at us. I didn’t think she could under the weight of her beehive hairdo. She took a seat in a throne of an armchair and hefted her shellacked hairdo against the back. “Macayla is a fine young girl. We’ve raised her as our own, and we’ve done a good job bringing her up right. She doesn’t need to have you come ‘round, all these years later, to screw her thinking all up.”

  Neither of Kate’s parents offered us to sit, so we just kept standing, side by side. Kate started shuffling her feet across a tired green carpet. “I have a right to see my daughter,” she said.

  “Seems to me you gave up your rights over thirteen years ago when you walked out on your baby girl,” the father said.

  “No sir,” I intercepted, ready to quarterback the conversation that was going nowhere. “I don’t believe Kate ever gave up her legal parental rights.”

  “Who are you? The law?”

  “I’m your daughter’s friend, and I happen to be an attorney,” I said.

  “Now you looky hear,” he said to Kate. “You have some nerve showing up here, and bringing this woman...”

  “...Dad, I don’t mean any trouble. I just want to see my daughter, maybe visit with her for a while, and we’ll be on our way,” Kate said.

  “Let’s get this over with,” the face under the beehive said.

  The father shot a warning glance my way, then yelled up the staircase. “Macayla. Come on down. She’s here and wants to give you something.”

  “That gift of yours better be age-appropriate,” the mother muttered just as I heard the voice filtering down the staircase.

  “Papa, you told me no way she was gonna show.”

  I first saw the black boots, then the short shorts and the skintight bustier. When she turned at the landing, I saw the young girl who’d been sucking face with Rico in Aspen.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Bad Company

  Two weeks passed, but no time would strip Kate of the mortification she felt when she realized Aspen party girl, M.C., was actually her daughter, Macayla Chase Vander Ark. What I hoped would be a gift of reconciliation between Kate and her daughter turned out to be unfathomable consequences to one night’s misjudgment.

  She called me only once and we wound up in an argument. Slurring her words like a whiney harmonica smears sounds, she managed to let me know that even though she was a fuck-up, I was a fuck-in. And she was right. Inside, I was a mess. Trusting people was always in my D.N.A., but those cells were divided and conquered by a consuming fear of everyone.

  I never asked what happened between her, Rico, and M.C. that night, but I imagined the worst. Kate’s behavior appeared to confirm it. She’d tell me if she wanted to talk; I could meet her down on Widow’s Row. Of course, girl-talk was not part of the Widow’s Row culture. Impossible in between line dances, cocktail waitresses and loud bands. She knew it. I knew it.

  While my downhill spiral was fast, Kate’s left skid marks. When George Baird was in town, Kate partied hard with booze, cocaine, and probably a variety of other substances I didn’t know about. He’d traipse into town and show up at The Raging Bovine, all aglitter in a white sequined sport coat, and she’d rush into his shiny fat arms. When he disappeared, so did Kate. She never ventured out beyond the walls of The Lost Cat. Rudy told me his wife, Rosa, was putting in overtime to keep the bed and breakfast going. The largely transgender-patient clientele at the B&B needed more than just a room. They depended on Kate’s nurturing environment. Now, Rosa did more than the cooking, the shopping, and the cleaning. She would greet and meet, run the advertising, and pay the bills as they came in. With the approach of warmer weather, Rosa even tried to tend the outdoor gardens, one thing Kate had a knack for and loved to do.

  No one was doing the nurturing, which despite her own adamant denial Kate had done so well. And no one was doing the books. Even Rosa knew it was time to worry.

  I reread my father’s handwritten note a dozen times:

  Wait for me, my darling Erin.

  I miss you with all my heart.

  I have a surprise waiting for you.

  You are fond of chinchilla,

  aren’t you, my dearest?

  Plenty of clues, but I remained clueless. I decided to call my old private investigator friend to see if maybe he could dig up anything on Naomi Gaines. He’d told Adam that Erin McGinnis was nothing but a dead-end. He couldn’t find anything on her.

  It seemed Naomi had been aloof toward me ever since I asked her about Erin McGinnis, not to mention the eerily odd coincidence she owned a chinchilla coat.

  “Hey, Breecie. Long time no hear,” he said.

  “I have another small case for you here in Trinidad,” I said.

  “Trinidad?”

  “Yes, I’m still down here. I know things didn’t work out with the last missing person job, but this should be a little easier. I just need a background check, that kind of thing.�
��

  “What the devil are you talking about? It’s been a couple years. The last job I can remember doing for you resulted in sparing an innocent guy from going to jail, and nailing three other sonsabitches,” he said. “We made a great team.”

  “Now I’m confused,” I said. “Oh wait a minute, I guess technically it was Adam Chancellor that hired you. I asked him to call you for me. I’m talking about the Erin McGinnis case.”

  “Sweetie, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I haven’t spoken to Chancellor in over a year, either. Don’t know anything about Trinidad ‘cept it’s an island down in the Atlantic, somewhere I’d love to be on. I never had any McGinnis case.”

  I clenched my jaw. A sharp pain shot up my neck. Adam had told me the investigator closed the case because he wasn’t getting anywhere. I was wasting his time. Now the investigator denied it, saying he’d never been hired in the first place.

  “Breecie? Are you there?”

  “I have two cases for you,” I said, choking back another round of Adam tears. “I need everything you can find on a woman named Erin McGinnis, and another one, Naomi Gaines.” I spelled out the letters to both names. “And sorry, but you aren’t going to be doing any island hopping in this investigation. This is in Trinidad, Colorado.”

  I wanted to give him a third case, my father. The great James Lemay, Esquire. And another one. Dig up what he could on Adam Chancellor.

  I bit my tongue and closed my heart.

  Baird was used to being the fireman, only because he fanned so many of his own flames. He was back in his Denver office, trying to calm down an irate James Lemay over the speakerphone while perfecting his six-foot putts. He was aiming for a glass lying on the wood floor and didn’t appreciate the interruption.

  “Jimmy-boy, this isn’t doing your ticker any good,” Baird said. “I’m telling you, your daughter isn’t all that chummy with my girlfriend down there. I don’t think they do much talking. If they did, I’d be the first one to know, and you’d be the second. I’m telling you one more time, I’m not gonna quit banging her. Not ‘til I say so.”

  James Lemay’s words came slow—his message, resolute and clear. “I’ve tried everything I know to get Breecie back to Washington, but she isn’t budging, even with her wedding back on. Now, as far as I know, Kate Vander Ark is the only friend Breecie has around here. I know my daughter, George, and she’s asking about you. That dick of yours is going to blow our whole deal.”

  Baird missed his putt. “You just don’t get it. Kate is a doped-up blonde airhead. She doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. She wouldn’t even know what to ask about my business. You’re the one that screwed up on your watch when Ari Christenson rented out a floor to your daughter. I wasn’t even in the country, for crisakes. The next thing I know I drive down to the ranch and find her out there playing house.”

  “I’ll see you next week.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Business as usual.”

  The overnight rain at the ranch failed to crystallize into snow, the first sign springtime in the Rockies had finally arrived. I was homesick for the cherry blossoms back home. Festival time was over and the blossoms long faded. I remembered relishing their delicate promise of spring. Adam’s office overlooked the trees surrounding the Jefferson Memorial. Damn you, Adam.

  The smell of Starbucks Breakfast Blend mingled with that of fresh wet pine, as alluring as any French perfume. I donned a sweater, poured my coffee into a thermal mug, and jaunted down the two flights of stairs.

  As far and wide as I could see, log benches dotted the working ranch. They provided essential resting spots for tired laborers as well as sacred meditation spots for tired spirits. I took up residence on a bench overlooking the mountains native Indians called Wahatoya. Breasts of the Earth.

  I watched the dancing streams of steam escape from the two holes on top of my coffee mug, then followed the line of sight in front of me, watching the spectacle as the morning sun caused a similar dance across the blanket of buffalo grass. Catching my eye, the next movement was Jonathan Marasco, dropping down from one of the nature trails with his guitar slung across his back.

  He slipped the strap from his shoulder, careful not to let the instrument scrape against the muddied grass, then sank against the curvature of the distant log bench. Music followed with one swift movement as he brought the guitar to his lap and began to caress its six strings. Too bad Jonathan didn’t treat humans with as much regard.

  He couldn’t see me from his position. He played with free abandonment. His music sounded of a riveting combination with equal qualities of an eclectic Ottmar Liebert and a pop Eric Clapton, all blended in an enchanting echo reminding me of Clare de Lune.

  Ever since I was a little girl, I’d imagined a guitarist playing Clare de Lune at my wedding. I was overwhelmed with emotion and could do little to hold back the stream of tears.

  It was time to call Adam.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  She’s Still My Little Girl

  I found Kate in her parlor room. It was two in the afternoon and she was pouring herself scotch on the rocks. Makeup failed to conceal the dark puffy circles under her eyes just like the scotch would fail to make her happy.

  “You need to pull yourself together, Kate. Drinking isn’t going to kill the pain.”

  “Yeah, well it numbs the receptors just fine.”

  “Rosa tells me you’re not getting out of bed until noon, and even then you don’t leave this house.”

  “Rosa has a big fat Mexican mouth that’s going to get her fired.”

  “Rosa is the only reason The Lost Cat is still in business. If you keep this up, she’ll quit before you get the chance to terminate her.”

  Kate curled up in a bay window. “Guess I’m the talk of the town.” Her eyes refused to meet mine, darting from the floor to the window overlooking her porch, and back again. Journey slinked into the room and hopped up on her lap.

  I opted for a change in the conversation. “You should see Benny now. He’s almost as big as Journey.”

  “Yeah, well, I knew you’d make a good mother.” Kate’s hoarse voice was not much above a whisper.

  “What happened? Do you want to talk about it?”

  She held up her drink in a mock toast, “Got an hour?”

  “I have forever.”

  “Well, let’s see. What happened started when I was sixteen and I got myself knocked up by a boy I’d known all of one summer. I blew my whole future away when I let him talk me into hopping into the sack with him.”

  “You’re blowing your whole future away now, up your nose.”

  Kate finally looked up at me. I couldn’t tell if she was fuming or ready to burst into tears. “Might as well sit down, Breecie,” she managed. “You don’t think I got myself this messed up overnight, do you?”

  I took a seat at the antique rolltop desk.

  “Turns out he was a Catholic altar boy,” she said. “When his deacon dad found out I was pregnant he immediately arranged the marriage, just as soon as I could be confirmed in his church.”

  “They were trying to do what they thought was right,” I said.

  “Yeah, well maybe, but they didn’t count on the fact their little boy had never seen a pregnant woman, and by the time I was four months along he couldn’t even look at me, let alone touch me. We were just two stupid kids, only I was stupid and fat.”

  Rosa brought in a tray with two iced teas, cheese, and crackers. Kate offered her a weak smile and asked her to set it on a table in front of me. Rosa offered me a glass, well aware Kate’s iced tea would remain untouched on the table.

  “Anyway, without a sexy wife, and with the hormones of any normal eighteen-year old boy, he started taking up with another girl. Maybe lots of them, but I only found out about the one. He drove her up to his father’s cabin that had been locked up all winter, then lit up a joint just as he was taking the chain off the front door.”

  Kate paused and took a slug of her liquor du-jou
r. I sat quiet. A very learned skill for lawyers.

  “There’d been some sort of a slow gas leak from the water heater, and, well, my baby wasn’t yet born and I became the widow of a cheating husband.”

  She’d never told me how or when her husband had died. I still struggled to remember Kate was a widow. “That’s a lot for anyone to endure, let alone a teenager,” I said, taking a napkin full of cheese and crackers over to her, forcing them into her hand. “You did the best you could, for you and your baby.”