Goose in the Pond

by Earlene Fowler

  As the meeting broke up, Ash and Dolores huddled in a corner discussing, I assumed, their tandem-storytelling performance and workshop at the festival. Though her specialty was Latin-American folktales and she did have a performance scheduled in both Spanish and English on Saturday, she and Ash had worked up an act using local San Celina history. Dolores’s face was animated as she showed Ash a book she pulled from her old green backpack.

  “Aren’t they just the cutest thing since the Captain and Tennille,” Jillian commented, walking up beside me. A strong cloud of expensive perfume filled the air around me like tule fog.

  I shrugged, not sure how she meant the remark.

  She touched my hand lightly, her nails tickling my skin. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. That old green animal strikes again. She’s very pretty. And talented.” She grimaced in a delicate, practiced way. “And young.”

  Her honesty disarmed me, and I smiled. “Yes, she is. But you’re no wilting violet yourself.”

  “Thanks,” she said, smoothing back a strand of platinum chin-length hair. “I turned forty this year, and I’m feeling a bit left behind.” She was thin as a marsh reed with tiny features and a skittishness about her, like a finely bred horse. She was a lot like her aunt Constance—intense, perfectionistic, high-energy. But she differed in one significant way. She wasn’t a snob. Although a trust fund made her wealthy enough to buy us all out twenty times over, she was a hard worker and didn’t “hold airs,” as Dove would say. She had been the director of the library for the last three years, a job she was given because of familial connections. But detractors had to reluctantly admit, she was highly qualified for the job, with impeccable credentials from USC and experience at libraries in San Francisco and Sacramento. She apparently ran the place with the grace of a born diplomat and, according to Nick, was the most completely fair boss he’d ever worked under.

  “Have you talked to Nick yet?” I asked, drawing her attention away from Dolores and Ash, who were laughing softly at some shared joke.

  She scratched a corner of her glossy mouth with a polished nail. “Just briefly on the phone. I’m dropping by his house after this. He’s going to need time off, and that’s certainly going to wreak havoc on the budget. But never mind, that’s my problem. Have you been to see him?”

  “No, I’m going to try and get by there today. I know he and Nora were very close.”

  “The only ones left in their family,” Jillian said softly. Then I remembered that her whole family—mother, father, and brother—had been killed in a plane crash when she was ten. She came to live with Constance, her mother’s only sister, who’d never had children of her own. With five years’ difference in our ages, Jillian and I never ran in the same crowds, but she, according to my uncle Arnie, had been popular in school with both sexes. To add tragedy upon tragedy, Jillian’s husband, a talented architect who had helped design the new library, had left her a few months ago for a younger woman he’d met at some marathon in Hawaii. “Sent her a ‘Dear Jane’ telegram from Honolulu,” Nick had told me. “Quit his job the same way.”

  “At least Nick has all of us,” I said to Jillian.

  She gave her hair a minute toss, as if mentally shaking off her personal troubles, and smiled. “That’s right, and we’re going to be there for him. After I see him I need to start thinking about what I’m going to say to my employees Monday morning. Is there anything you can tell me about the progress of the investigation?”

  “Sorry. They’ve just got started. I’m sure Gabe will talk to you if you give him a call. He’ll let you know what you can say.”

  “I’ll call him from my car. I really want my employees to feel safe . . . to be safe. Whatever I have to do to achieve that, I will.” She tucked her tiny leather clutch under her arm. Casting one last surreptitious glance at Dolores and Ash’s lowered heads, she straightened her spine and pushed through the studio door.

  I watched her walk out, an old country-western song coming to mind. Looking for love in all the wrong places . . . who would have ever thought a corny line like that could ring so true?

  “So, has the Empress of San Celina got everything under control?” Dolores said behind me.

  I turned around and faced her, surprise on my face. “Actually, she’s very concerned about Nick. And about the rest of her employees.”

  Dolores shrugged. “I suppose.” She still wore the frilly white Mexican blouse that was part of her uniform at her parents’ restaurant downtown, but she’d replaced the full colorful cotton skirt with faded Levi’s. Her waist-length black hair was pulled back in a braid tied with a red ribbon. Right at this moment her smooth brown cheeks were flushed a rosy cinnamon. I hoped it wasn’t just because of Ash’s attention. According to Nick, who hired Dolores as a part-time library clerk in the reference department, she came from a very traditional Mexican family—the youngest of eight children—and a dalliance with a Southern lothario spouting a line as lethal as the smoothest Kentucky bourbon would no doubt only bring her heartache.

  “How’s the tandem-storytelling project going?” I asked.

  “Great! I’m learning so much from Ash about voice and style and structure. No one can set a mood like him, and his memorization techniques . . . well, what can I say. He’s just . . . great!” I felt my heart sink. That glow wasn’t from learning storytelling techniques, and I suspected that he was indeed setting a mood—and she was falling right down the rabbit hole for it. I glanced over at him. He was talking to Peter but he must have sensed my scrutiny. He looked up and gave me an amused smile, as if he knew we were discussing him and enjoyed it. I turned back to Dolores, who was pulling out the Historical Society’s book of San Celina pioneer tales.

  I finally broke away, using the excuse of company at home. “I’ll see you at the final meeting Wednesday evening,” I told her.

  On the way through the museum I ran into Evangeline and D-Daddy deep in conversation. I glided past them, raising my hand in good-bye.

  “Benni, wait,” Evangeline called. She said one last thing to her father and met me at the front door. She laid a tentative hand on my shoulder. As big as she was, her touch was as gentle as a butterfly landing. “You did a good job refereeing in there,” she said. “Nora’s . . . well, this whole thing has everyone just a little shaky. But I just wanted to tell you I appreciated how you handled everyone.”

  “Thanks,” I said, giving her a rueful smile. “I hope things will be a bit more calmed down by Friday night.”

  “Does Gabe have any idea who might have killed her?”

  “Not the last time I talked to him. They’re probably doing the autopsy as we speak. They’ll know a lot more after that.”

  She gave a small shudder and brushed a dark curl out of her eyes. “Murder’s such a drastic thing.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, though I thought the word drastic was an unusual choice. Tragic, horrible, even frightening seemed more appropriate. “I guess someone would have to really be angry to take another human being’s life.”

  “Or—”

  “Evangeline, chère, come here,” D-Daddy called.

  “The captain calls,” she said, smiling. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  As I walked out to my truck I wondered what she was about to say about murder before D-Daddy interrupted her. Did she know something about Nora’s life that might shed some light on who killed her? Evangeline, though joining the co-op only six months before, had become something of a surrogate mother and confidante to many of the artists. I’d even bent her sympathetic ear a time or two when the clashing personalities of the artists had irritated me beyond my ability to keep silent. She had a way of encouraging your most intimate confidences just by the way she concentrated on your every word with her dark consoling eyes.

  At the grocery store I walked up and down the aisles trying to figure out what kind of food to feed an eighteen-year-old boy, particularly one I’d only talked to for a couple of minutes. I
settled on the basics of boxed granola-style cereal, orange juice, milk, vegetables and fruits, cheese, chicken, spaghetti, and for myself, just to get through an evening promising to be emotional, a box of Ding Dongs. Most of the time Sam would have to fend for himself, or Gabe would have to take him out, because I was busy almost every night through Sunday. Not that it was different from my usual way. Food was something that Gabe and I, along with finances and housing, hadn’t quite worked out in our marriage, though we’d been living together for over seven months. At this point it had been catch-as-catch-can on meals, with the local restaurants profiting. Our finances had settled into a comfortable pattern of him paying the rent and utilities and his own personal bills and me paying my personal bills as well as things like insurance, household repairs, and what food we do keep around the house. But we’d never talked about any long-range plans. It all seemed to stem from him still having that house over by Nick’s. Somehow, I felt, when he was forced to mingle all his possessions with mine, we’d have to face up to the fact that we were indeed and most certainly forever-and-ever-amen legally hitched and we would be compelled to come up with some sort of team plan.

  I climbed out of the truck and was, as Dove would say, trying to juggle a lazy man’s load of three bags of groceries and my purse when a patrol car pulled up behind me. Gabe stepped out and gave the driver a wave of thanks. My heart quickened to a rate that would have set off five-star alarms if it had been hooked to a monitor.

  Please, I thought, don’t let Sam walk out right this minute.

  Gabe trotted over and grabbed two of the slipping bags. “What’s this?” he asked, his voice pleased. “Did my wife actually listen to my pleas for a home-cooked meal?” He peered down into one of the bags. “Fresh asparagus? Chicken breasts? Mushrooms? Was I dropped off at the right house?”

  “Gabe, honey, before we go in—”

  His head popped up, his expression frozen for a split second. “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “What have you done?”

  “What do you mean what have I done?” I shifted the third bag in front of me for protection. “What makes you think I’ve done anything?”

  “For the duration of our relationship you have at times called me Ortiz or Chief or Friday or Gabe, as well as a few things I’d just as soon not remember or repeat. Once, in the deepest throes of passion, I think you might have even whispered ‘baby’ in my ear. But you have never, ever called me anything that remotely resembled a loving endearment like honey.” He set the brown bags on the hood of the truck. “I repeat, what have you done?”

  I set my bag next to the other two. “I really resent the fact that you assume that I’ve—” Before I could finish, I heard the front door open. My heart landed with what I swore was an audible thud to the bottoms of my well-worn boots.

  In horror then surprise, I watched Gabe’s face go from suspicious to confused. His slate-blue eyes widened, and a quirky smile tugged underneath his mustache. I let out my held breath. Maybe this reunion wasn’t going to be as emotional as I thought.

  He let out a low wolf whistle.

  “Who in the heck is that?” he asked.

  5

  I SWUNG AROUND, my heart pounding. If that kid wasn’t Sam, then who was he? Then I let out a loud groan.

  “Hi, y’ all,” said the vision in a minuscule denim skirt and tight pink angora sweater. “What’s for supper?”

  I slumped against the truck, Sam temporarily forgotten.

  “Well?” Gabe said, his eyes glued to her as she took the three porch steps, as the song goes, one hip at a time. Her bright pink cowboy boots with RIDE ’EM COWBOY in carmine red leather across the shaft, reached the bottoms of her very shapely knees.

  “Rita,” I said, groaning again.

  Gabe nodded his head, impressed. “Ah, the infamous cousin Rita.”

  I punched his arm. “You can shove your eyes back in your head now.” Though I couldn’t blame him. Rita always had that effect on men. If you compared our vital statistics—five feet almost one inches, reddish-blond hair, hazel eyes, and a hundred and five some-odd pounds—we could be sisters. Except hers is packaged a lot more glittery than mine. Sort of like the difference between Las Vegas and Cheyenne.

  She had played a significant offstage role in the crime where Gabe and I met a little less than a year ago. She was a witness and possible suspect, and I hid her whereabouts from the law—that is, Gabe—while trying to find the murderer. He heard a lot about her during the investigation, but before they met, she ran off with Skeeter Gluck, bullrider ordinaire.

  “My new cousin-in-law,” Rita purred, shimmying up to Gabe. She held out one Pinch Me Pink-nailed hand while fluffing her starched Reba McEntire curls with the other. “I’m just tickled to finally meet you. A real-life police chief. Tell me, is it true what all my girlfriends say about cops?”

  He grinned. “Depends on what they’re saying.”

  Her shameless once-over down the length of him made it clear that her girlfriends weren’t talking about their ability to fill out crime reports.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice not a little ungracious. Then our other guest popped into my mind. I turned back to Gabe. “Gabe, there’s something else—”

  The front door opened again. We all turned and watched Sam step out on the front porch.

  “Hi, Dad,” he said, his face as calm and casual as if he’d just seen his father ten minutes before. “Catch any bad guys today?”

  Gabe’s face shifted into that blank, absolutely still expression that always reminded me of those dogs who don’t give any warning before they bite. His eyes turned from an amused blue gray to hard flint. Even Rita had the good sense to step back and clamp her mouth shut. He looked down at me and asked in a frosty voice, “How long has he been here?”

  “A couple of hours, but—”

  He strode past me toward his son. I held my breath, not sure what he would do when he reached the front porch. Without a word, he walked right by Sam, through the front door, and slammed it behind him.

  “My, my,” Rita said. “I bet if I’d’ve touched him right then, he’d’ve just burned my little fingertips right to the bone.” Her thin eyebrows shot up. “Repressed passion. I like that in a man.”

  Ignoring her, I walked over to Sam. His big hand rested on the adobe arch, a blank expression similar to Gabe’s on his face. He’d gotten what I think he wanted, surprising his father, but I wasn’t sure the result was what he’d anticipated.

  “Sam,” I said. “You and Rita put the groceries away. I’ll talk to your father and see if we can’t get this straightened out.” Though how I was going to do that was a mystery to me.

  Sam gave a sharp sarcastic laugh. “Don’t sweat it, Benni. Believe me, he’s happiest when he’s pissed at me.”

  “Sam, that’s not true.”

  He ignored my reply and went out to the truck. He picked up the bags, making a low comment to Rita that caused her to erupt with a squeaky giggle.

  Inside, I stood in front of our closed bedroom door for a moment, thinking, This is all I need this week, then chided myself for being so self-centered. This had to be tough on Gabe. Maybe I made the wrong decision in not calling him immediately about Sam, but the scenario hadn’t worked out quite the way I planned. Who would have ever expected Rita to show up? Why was she here, and what in the world was I going to do with her? Well, that little problem was going to have to wait. I straightened my shoulders and opened the door.

  Gabe stood next to the bedroom window looking out at the yellow rosebushes along the side fence. His hands were relaxed at his side, but the stiffness of his posture said his anger was still in full bloom. He turned and faced me. “How long has he been here?” he asked again.

  “Only a couple of hours—”

  “Why didn’t you call me? I don’t appreciate—”

  I held up my hand to silence him. “I made the decision not to call because I figured it would be even harder if you heard it over the ph
one. I was certain I’d get home first and catch you before you saw him.”

  His bottom lip disappeared under his mustache. “I don’t appreciate being humiliated by my own wife in my own home in front of strangers.”

  “No one was trying to humiliate you, Gabe. And Rita is, unfortunately, not a stranger, but a relative. Believe me, I had no idea she was here. I still have to find out the story behind that. But let’s get back to the real issue here, and that’s you and Sam.”

  “There’s no issue. He’s here because his money ran out.”

  “That may be so,” I said carefully. “We honestly didn’t talk long enough for me to find out. I had to go to a meeting about the storytelling festival right after he showed up. But I’m sure—”

  “He won’t be staying long. He made his bed and he can sleep in it.”

  I went over and slipped my arms around his waist. His body was stiff and unyielding. “Gabe, why don’t you just hear him out? He is your son.”

  He pulled away from my embrace and started for the door. “He can stay for a couple of days, and that’s it. I’m sick of bailing him out because he’s too irresponsible to stick to any plans. He claims he’s a man. Well, men don’t expect other people to take care of them.”

  I followed him into the living room, not knowing exactly how to answer. The room was empty. A brown paper grocery sack with writing on it was propped on the pine coffee table.

  Rita and I walked downtown to get dinner. See you later. Sam.

  I let out my breath in a long sigh. Confrontation temporarily averted. Though normally not a procrastinator, I was thankful this male butting of heads was delayed. The thought of Gabe’s eighteen-year-old son spending a cozy evening with my twenty-two-year-old I-never-met-a-man-I-couldn’t-help-but-seduce cousin Rita was not my fondest wish, but I had to trust Sam. His virtue was certainly the least of my problems at this point.

  Gabe set the note down without commenting.

  “Why don’t you take a hot shower, and I’ll fix dinner,” I coaxed him. “Everything will look better once you’ve eaten.”