Goose in the Pond

by Earlene Fowler

  “This is the Ortiz residence, isn’t it?” he asked, his smooth young face turning slightly worried. He scratched his cropped brown hair and looked down at the envelope in his hand. He flashed his brilliant smile again. “You’re Benni, aren’t you? I’m Sam Ortiz, your stepson.”

  “Uh, yes,” I finally managed to say. My mind started darting in a million directions. Gabe’s son? Here? Now? This was all he needed. Aaron’s death, Nora’s murder, his errant son showing up on his doorstep. The bright yellow duffel bag sitting at his feet was huge, as if it contained all his worldly possessions. A surfboard in a lime-green nylon cover leaned against it. I glanced behind him. No vehicle except the Corvette in the driveway. How did he get here? How long did he plan to stay?

  His eyes flicked over my shoulder into the house. “Can I come in?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Come on in. It’s great to finally meet you.” I held out my hand, and he enveloped it with a large cool hand that felt so much like Gabe’s it startled me.

  We stood in the middle of the living room without speaking for a minute or so. My mind was still speeding a hundred miles an hour. Sam took my disorientation in stride and quietly inspected his surroundings while I tried subtly to study him. He was dressed in the loose, faded jeans common to his age group and a bright turquoise Hawaiian-patterned T-shirt that complemented his glowing burnt-sienna tan and muscled biceps. Gabe’s first wife, Lydia, was a full-blooded Mexican-American, and Sam had inherited her chocolate-colored eyes and a skin tone darker and more coppery brown than Gabe’s. He was taller than Gabe by an inch or so, and except for his well-developed arms, still had the slim boniness of a late-adolescent male. When he and his muscles matured, he was going to be a very striking, formidable-looking man. Like his father.

  “Do I have mustard on my chin?” he finally asked, still smiling.

  I shook my head and felt my neck turn warm. Apparently I’d been as subtle as a clown. “I’m sorry. You don’t look much like your pictures, and we weren’t really expecting you. . . .” I gave him an apologetic look. “I’m usually much better with surprises. It’s been a rough morning. Your dad’s going to be just thrilled—”

  He interrupted me with a cheerful laugh. “Benni . . . can I call you that? I was kidding about the mom part. You’re way too young to be my mom.”

  I smiled at his shameless compliment. He’d certainly learned better than his father that a little charm can go a long way in easing an awkward situation.

  “I know my dad, Benni, and thrilled he won’t be. That’s okay. I’m his only kid, and he’s stuck with me.” He fiddled with the small gold hoop in one ear. I could already hear Gabe grumbling about that. “I hate to bother you, but could I have a glass of water?”

  “Oh, sure,” I said. “Do you want something else? We have Cokes and orange juice, and I’m not sure what else.”

  His eyes brightened. “Got any grape soda?”

  I groaned. “Forget the blood tests. You are Gabe’s son.”

  In the kitchen I filled a glass with ice while trying to decide what course of action would be most prudent. Call Gabe? Let him walk in on Sam without warning? Take off for the hills while there was still time? I glanced at my watch. It was twenty minutes until two. If I left now I’d just make it to the museum in time. The meeting shouldn’t last longer than an hour or so and most likely Gabe wouldn’t come home until later tonight. I could be at the door to meet him before he even saw Sam. I couldn’t imagine how I was going to break it to him short of “Guess who’s coming to dinner?”

  I walked back into the living room carrying the purple soda. Sam was studying the wedding portrait Gabe and I had taken in Las Vegas. It hung on the wall next to Sam’s formal high-school graduation photograph, back when he was earring-free and a year and a half younger. That pudgy young man didn’t look at all like this handsome, lean-faced surf bum standing in my living room. He turned around when he heard me walk in.

  “I can’t believe you trapped my dad. Ever since I was eleven, when he and Mom got divorced, he never dated a woman longer than a month or two. What did you do, cast a spell on him?”

  “Here.” I shoved the glass into his hand. “Why is it everyone always assumes that I trapped him? Doesn’t it ever occur to anyone that it might be the other way around? Believe me, he’s no garage-sale Rembrandt.” I felt myself flush again. Good job, Benni. Very mature. You’ve known this boy exactly three minutes and you’re already trashing his dad.

  “Hmm, the dove has talons.” He took a long drag off his drink. “I see now why you attracted him.”

  I glared at him. He responded with a wide innocent smile. It wouldn’t have worked except for the purple mustache staining his upper lip. I burst out laughing. Why should I hold it against this kid just because his father and I had such transparent pathologies?

  “I bet you drove your parents crazy as a child.”

  “Past tense?” he answered, sitting the glass on the table. “So, where is my dad anyway? Don’t tell me he’s working on a Sunday?”

  I picked up my purse. “Unfortunately he is. There was a homicide this morning down at Laguna Lake. He probably won’t be home until late and he’ll be pretty upset.” I hesitated, then said, “Sam, your father tried to call you a few weeks ago—”

  Sam lifted his hands in entreaty. “I know, I know, I should have left a number. But I was all bummed out ’cause my girlfriend broke up with me. I went to stay with a friend who had a house on Kauai. His phone was disconnected, and like I said, I was so bummed out ’cause of this chick—”

  “Sam, he was trying to call because of Aaron.”

  Sam’s face grew still. His throat rippled with a tiny convulsion. “He died, didn’t he?”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry. Rachel was with him. And your dad and Esther saw him just hours before. The funeral was three weeks ago.”

  Tears pooled in Sam’s dark eyes, and I was amazed to see one slowly roll down his cheek. “Aaron was a good guy. He taught me how to dive when no one else could.” He impatiently swiped at his cheek. “I never thought he’d . . . how’s Dad taking it?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said honestly.

  “In other words, Mr. Tough-Guy-Show-No-Emotion. Right?” A tinge of bitterness etched his words.

  I didn’t answer. He obviously knew his father’s personality, but I didn’t know Sam well enough yet to discuss Gabe with him.

  “What about my mom? She and Rachel were good friends at one time. Before the divorce.”

  “She couldn’t come to the funeral. She apparently couldn’t get an important court date changed since Aaron wasn’t an immediate family member.” I touched his forearm. “Sam, I have an emergency meeting I have to attend. Are you going to be okay?”

  He shrugged, feigning coolness though a faint sheen of water still coated his eyes. “Yeah, sure. I saw him the last time I was here. And it doesn’t much matter about the funeral. I don’t really believe in them and I’m sure dad handled it perfectly, like he does everything. He didn’t need me.”

  I didn’t contradict his statement, though I wasn’t sure of its accuracy. Maybe Sam was just what Gabe had needed. At any rate, this whole father-son thing was beyond my area of expertise and was something that, like it or not, Gabe was going to have to deal with. I gestured down the hallway. “The guest room is on the right. You can put your stuff in there. Feel free to eat whatever you like. I’ll pick up some groceries after my meeting. Like I said, I don’t know when Gabe’s going to be home, and he won’t be in the best mood when he does.”

  “Worry not, madrastra. I can handle my dad.” He flopped down on Gabe’s new cordovan leather recliner, pushed himself all the way back, and crossed his feet. He wore faded blue Vans with no socks. “Don’t forget, I’ve had a lot more practice than you.” He grinned up at me.

  I smiled back. Madrastra—stepmom. Elvia’s youngest brother, Ramon, called her that whenever she tried to mother him. A term of endearment if said in the right way. It didn’t
take long for this kid to winnow his way into a person’s heart. I could only hope his irrepressible charm and the love I knew Gabe felt for him would outweigh his transgressions.

  “I’ll see you in a couple of hours, then,” I said.

  “I’ll hold down the fort,” he called back, his voice as confident and easy as if he’d known me forever.

  Five vehicles were in the museum’s gravel parking lot when I arrived. That meant almost everyone was there. I sat in my truck for a moment and swept my eyes over the museum’s buildings. They looked spit and polished and ready for a party. The terra-cotta roof of the two-story Spanish hacienda looked especially nice since we’d cleaned all the tiles and replaced the broken ones. The bougainvillea bush hugging the top of the long wooden porch bloomed in a fiery spray of red-and-orange leaves. Thanks to a group cleanup day, there wasn’t a shrub or bush untrimmed or a wilted petal in any of the oak-barrel planters filled with wildflowers. I reminded myself to buy film for the museum’s camera and take a picture of the buildings while they were looking so great. These days, I was feeling pretty smug because I’d finally found an assistant who could keep the museum grounds looking this perfect even if acquiring him had been none of my doing. He had been recommended to me by one of our quilters, Evangeline Boudreaux.

  “D-Daddy might well be seventy, but he can outwork you and me, yes, ma’am,” she’d told me about her father in her French-tinged south-Louisiana accent. “And he sure could use someplace to go every day.”

  “D-Daddy?” I said, laughing. “Is that his real name?”

  “Oh, his given name is Michel, but everyone’s called him D-Daddy for as long as I can remember. He’s one tough old rooster and a real hard worker. He’ll be fixing stuff before you even knew you wanted it fixed.”

  So three months ago, her father, D-Daddy Boudreaux, started his second career as my new assistant, and the museum and I were both the winners. No equipment ever stayed broken longer than a day, and except for the heavy lifting, which the men in the co-op took over, D-Daddy ran the museum with the no-nonsense vigor of someone who’ d commanded a commercial fishing boat for thirty-nine years. I always teased him that he was after my job.

  “Now, now,” he’d say, shaking his favorite Sears Craftsman hammer at me. “Don’t nobody can take your place, no. You just go on now and take care them artists. Let D-Daddy do what he do best.”

  As I stepped up on the porch D-Daddy came out of the museum’s double Spanish doors. He ran his palm carefully over his thick white wavy hair. That hair, according to Evangeline, was his one area of pure vanity.

  “He spends more money on hair products than Dolly Parton,” she said, poking absently at her own wavy black hair.

  D-Daddy’s dark eyes widened with pleasure when he saw me. “Ange!” he said. “Comment ça va? A tragedy, no? Nora was such a sweet girl.”

  “I’m fine, D-Daddy,” I said, smiling at the nickname he gave me the first time we met—angel. He’d said my hazel eyes and unruly reddish-blond curls reminded him of the pictures of angels in his grandmère’s old family Bible. “It is sad. But Gabe’s working on it now. If anyone can find her killer, you know he will.”

  His dark brown eyes sparkled mischievously. “With a little help from his ange gardien, eh?” He hitched up his gray work pants and followed me into the museum. The storytelling quilts were all hung, and by the looks of it, he’d been polishing the framed histories of each exhibitor.

  I laughed and shook my head. “No way. I don’t need a divine revelation telling this guardian angel to stay out of it. Believe me, he’ll be in no mood for anyone stepping out of line, especially now.” I told him about Sam’s unexpected appearance.

  He picked up a clean white cloth and bottle of Windex. “It’s a hard road, father and son. But is good for the chief. He too shut down, that one.” He clucked disapprovingly, sprayed glass cleaner on the cloth, and ran it along the top of a frame.

  “No argument from me on that front,” I said. “Is everyone here?”

  “Out back. They be already fightin’ like cats and dogs. You best get in there before there don’t be no storytellers to be tellin’ the stories come Friday.” He pointed upstairs where the new exhibit area displayed Constance Sinclair’s prized collection of Pueblo storytelling dolls. “I’ll be up the stairs cleaning. Anyone get outta line, you just holler, and D-Daddy come runnin’.”

  “Thanks, but I think I can handle this group.”

  “I’ll come runnin’,” he repeated. He took his job as my assistant very seriously, fancying himself a bit of a bodyguard.

  I walked under the ivy-and-honeysuckle-covered trellis that connected the museum and the hacienda’s old stables, now the artists’ studios. The sun had emerged from behind the checkered clouds, and I could feel its heat filtering through the thick ivy canopy. It matched the hot words that assaulted my ears before I even opened the studio doors.

  “How would you like this fist shoved down your throat?” It was the voice of Roy Hudson, Nora’s future ex-husband, as the song goes, and an aspiring cowboy poet. A thought occurred to me. Would he be legally considered a widower now?

  I stepped into the large airy workroom. Only one of the group sitting in the circle of folding chairs acknowledged my presence. Evangeline gave me a tremulous smile. I slipped into the folding chair next to her.

  “What’s going on?” I asked in a low voice.

  Her gray eyes slanted down with concern. She whispered, “Ash just said to Grace that the timing of Nora’s death and the advertisement for Zar’s services in today’s newspaper seemed an awful big coincidence. Then he asked her what she was doing Sunday morning.”

  “Well, it looks like we’re off to a ripping start,” I said with a tired sigh. Zar was Roy’s prize-winning Thorough-bred stud; at least he was if possession really did constitute nine tenths of the law. The horse was part of the divorce settlement that Nora and Roy couldn’t agree upon. Though Roy offered to pay her half Zar’s original cost, Nora insisted Zar was worth ten times that amount in future earnings and wanted the higher amount, which, of course, Roy didn’t have. They’d been haggling about it for almost a year. Grace had kept me apprised of the whole story as we exercised horses together at the stables she owned off Laguna Valley Road.

  “Calm down, Roy Rogers,” Ash drawled. “I was just tuggin’ your choke chain. Don’t get your leather panties all in a bunch.”

  Roy jumped up from his chair and started toward Ash, but was stopped when Grace threw her body directly in front of him and held him back. Her small, square hands splayed across his chest.

  “Roy, honey, let it go,” she said. “He’s just trying to get your goat, and you’re letting him do it.” She was a short, stout woman with arms as muscled as a ditch digger’s from years of wrangling horses. Her abundant red hair belonged on a storybook princess—curly as corkscrew noodles and full of light. It seemed at odds with her square, solid body and strict mouth. She was wearing faded Wranglers and a new blue plaid shirt.

  Roy, a lean man with tough, stringy muscles, straightened the corduroy Gator Ropes cap on his shaggy brown hair and allowed Grace to coax him back to his chair. But he continued to glare at Ash with narrowed eyes. Grace unconsciously stroked his forearm much in the same way a person might try to calm an agitated animal.

  “Let’s get started,” I said, pretending I hadn’t noticed the altercation. “I’m sure we all agree Nora’s death is a horrible tragedy. I was thinking that in her honor we might think of something that we could commemorate her memory with at the festival. Any ideas?” I pulled a notebook out of my purse and surveyed the committee members.

  Evangeline’s face visibly relaxed. In the six months I’d known her, I’d noticed that conflict of any type made her nervous. Many times I’d seen her walk out of the co-op studios when there was even the slightest hint of it. She was a tall woman with broad shoulders and long slender legs, but she had the grace of someone who’d come into her size gradually. She possessed the
most pleasing voice I’d ever heard, clear, warm, and melodic, with a laughing quality that compelled you to move in close. Perfect traits for a storyteller.

  “Perhaps we could dedicate part of the program to her,” I suggested when no one answered. “Maybe the children’s storytelling competition?” I looked around and tried to gauge their reactions. Roy wore a disgusted expression. Grace was attempting to look neutral, but the deep lines between her eyes gave her true feelings away. Peter and Ash both looked as if they didn’t care one way or the other.

  “There’s a few members missing,” I continued, “but we’ve got enough to vote.” Behind us the front doors swung open.

  “Have I missed anything important?” Jillian Sinclair asked. Behind her was Dolores Ayala, whose specialty was Mexican folktales and colorful, hand-painted folktale pottery.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Dolores said. “It was busy down at the restaurant.”

  “Hi, Dolores, Jillian,” I said. “We were just discussing what we should do to honor Nora Cooper at the festival this weekend. Why don’t you both take a seat, and we’ll continue?”

  Only two seats were free, one next to Ash and one on the other side of Evangeline. Dolores and Jillian reached the seat next to Ash simultaneously, and for a split second they stared at each other. Jillian pursed her bright coral lips and calmly sat down. Dolores turned and crossed the circle, her face blank, but her eyes flashing angrily. She dropped down next to Evangeline. Ash leaned over and patted Jillian’s silk-trousered knee with a familiarity that seemed to confirm what we’d all speculated—even the sophisticated Jillian Sinclair had at some time fallen for Ash’s line.

  In the next hour we finally agreed on sending flowers to Nora’s funeral, whenever that might be, and giving a short testimonial in the opening ceremonies rather than during the children’s storytelling competition.

  “Children see and hear enough violence,” Evangeline wisely pointed out. “I think we should honor Nora, but not at the expense of the children.”