Goose in the Pond

by Earlene Fowler

  Before I could protest, she disappeared into the guest room. I looked at Gabe, who was still grinning.

  “You won’t be so happy when there’s no hot water for your shower.”

  He laughed. “I’ll use the showers at the station.”

  “Speaking of showers,” Sam said, not looking at his father. “I think I’ll take one right now.” He breezed past us and claimed the bathroom. Gabe stared after him a moment before turning to me.

  “Alone at last,” he said, downing the rest of his Coke. “Is there anything to eat? And where have you been? You usually leave a note.”

  “And you usually call,” I answered, snatching the empty Coke bottle out of his hand and heading for the kitchen.

  He followed after me. “Sorry, we got so involved . . . why are you mad?”

  I tossed the bottle in the trash and started putting dishes in the dishwasher. “Sam cooked you dinner. We waited, and you never showed up. That short and sweet enough for you, Friday?”

  “Look, I just wasn’t ready—”

  “To be decent to your son,” I finished.

  “No,” he replied. He paused for a moment, and I could tell he was picking his words very deliberately. “Benni, I’m really sorry you have to be caught in the middle of this thing between me and Sam. As I told you before, there’s a lot about him you don’t know. It’s not your fault. Everyone falls in love with him. At first. You think I haven’t been taken in a million times by that smile of his? Lydia and I both have, especially after the divorce. She and I have discussed this many times, and we both agree that we caused a lot of his manipulating personality. Hopefully it’s not too late to try and correct some of our mistakes. I want him to become a self-sufficient adult who doesn’t try to just get by scamming off friends and family.”

  I looked down at the ground guiltily.

  He groaned softly and took my hands in his. “You gave him money, didn’t you?”

  “He didn’t ask,” I said defensively. “I offered.”

  He squeezed my hands, his face sad. “Sweetheart, he never asks. That’s how good he is. That’s what I want to try and change before it’s too late. I want him to become a responsible member of society, not a leech.”

  “At the cost of your relationship?”

  “Even at the cost of that. My responsibility as a parent to raise a child who can fit into our society is more important than having a child who thinks I’m the most wonderful person in the world.”

  Can’t you have both? I wanted to ask but held back. Who was I to ask that question? I’d never even had children. He pulled me into his arms.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled into his chest. “I just wish it was better between you two. You never know when . . .” I trailed off. His arms tightened around me, and I felt him rub his face across the top of my head. I knew we were both thinking about Aaron and I worried again about Gabe essentially ignoring the fact that his best friend had just died. Was his anger at Sam a reaction to that? I knew that was how some people reacted to death—push away everyone you care about with the irrational thought process that if you don’t get close to anyone, then you can’t be hurt when they’re taken away. “Gabe—” I started.

  He let go of me and opened the refrigerator. “Can we discuss this another time? I’m hungry and tired and would honestly rather talk about anything but my problems with Sam.”

  “Okay,” I said, watching him take out the leftover chicken and rice. “While you eat, I have some stuff to tell you about Nora’s case.” I filled him in on what I learned from both Nick and Will Henry. “So, why didn’t you tell me Nora inherited Bonita Peak and the land surrounding it?”

  “I only found out about it this morning. You and I haven’t really had a chance to talk, have we?” He scooped chicken and rice onto his plate, then put it in the microwave.

  I considered his answer, still not satisfied. “Were you going to tell me?”

  He hesitated just a moment too long.

  “Gabe! Don’t you think that’s something I should know? I am working with these people.”

  “That’s exactly my problem. I’m going to ask you just to trust me on this. I’ll tell you as much as I think you need to know to be safe.”

  “At first I thought you were right, that it would be better if I didn’t know anything. But I’ve changed my mind. I think now that the more I know, the safer I’ll be.”

  “I don’t agree,” he said, taking the steaming food over to the table.

  “Why not?”

  “The more you know, the chances are greater you might accidentally, verbally or nonverbally, let something out, and that could put you or others in danger.” He sat down and started eating. “I think we both agree that you do not possess the most poker face in the world.”

  “I resent that. I can keep a secret just as well as you.”

  “If you were hurt in any way because of my job, I’d never forgive myself. Aside from that, I also took an oath when I became a police officer. I am entrusted with public safety, and that requires me to make the decisions I think most prudent at the time. Sometimes I err on the side of caution, but that’s just how I am.” His eyes softened. “I know this has been hard for you, being thrown into being a cop’s wife without knowing what it would be like. But you can’t compare our relationship to what you had with Jack. He might have told you everything, but running a family ranch is vastly different than policing a city.”

  I didn’t answer for a moment. He was right; I was used to a different type of relationship, one where there weren’t any secrets, professional or personal. And logically what he said about public safety and his responsibility made sense. So why did it still make me so mad?

  “Look,” he said. “Haven’t I been a little better about being open about my feelings and talking to you about my job?”

  “On some things,” I admitted reluctantly. “But I wasn’t involved with those cases.”

  “My point exactly. Querida, give me a break.” He reached over and stroked my cheek with the back of his fingers. “I’m doing the best I can.”

  “I know.” I grabbed his hand, suddenly tired of all these conflicting emotions. Right here, right now, I loved him, and he loved me. Let the rest take care of itself.

  Later in bed, my troubling thoughts kept me wide awake, staring at the strips of moonlight painting the ceiling. “Gabe, are you asleep?”

  “Mmm,” he replied.

  “We didn’t talk about what Will Henry told me. About Nora being the Tattler. Did you know that?”

  “Um-hm,” he said.

  “You did? How?”

  “Informant.”

  “An informant? Where? At the Freedom Press?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gabe, were you—” I stopped myself from asking if he was going to tell me. It was too late to get into another argument. An informant at the paper—was it somebody I knew? I fell into a fitful sleep, all the suspects twirling around in my dreams in a tiny colorful cyclone.

  Singing woke me the next morning. Something about a pretty woman walking down a street.

  “Gabe,” I moaned, folding my pillow over my ear. “You forgot to turn off the alarm.”

  The voice became louder. The tangy scent of Aramis aftershave tingled in my nose. Pretty woman . . . he sang into the pillow.

  I opened my eyes and stared into his. “What are you so cheerful about this morning?”

  He straightened up and started tying his tie. “It’s a beautiful day and I’m happy to be waking up with the woman I love at my side.”

  “Seriously.”

  “Seriously, there’s every reason I shouldn’t be in a good mood with what’s waiting for me at the office, but I am.” He leaned over and kissed my nose. “Take advantage of it.”

  “Okay, who’s the informant at the Freedom Press?”

  He checked his tie in our full-length mirror, then turned to me. “Sorry, next question.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

&nbs
p; He just grinned and said, “You’d better get moving. It’s seven-thirty.”

  “I don’t have to be at the museum until ten.”

  At that moment the scent of bacon frying and the clatter of pans filtered through our bedroom door. I groaned and fell back into the pillows. “Dove. I forgot about her. I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

  “I’d give you some sympathy, but I’m fresh out.” He pulled his suit coat out of the closet. “See you in five minutes.”

  I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and made tracks for the kitchen. Dove was serving up grits when I sat down.

  “You’re late,” she said, peering up at my plastic kitchen clock.

  “That clock’s five minutes fast,” I mumbled, looking around the pine kitchen table. Sam and Rita’s chairs were empty. “Where’s the rest of the crew?” I dished up some grits, doctored them with salt and butter, and reached for the scrambled eggs.

  Dove laid a plate of crisp bacon in front of me and a bowl of oatmeal with fresh strawberries in front of Gabe. “Rita get up before ten o’clock?” Dove waved her metal spatula in the direction of the guest room. “She’s just like her mother. Those Caldicotts always did think God made the sun raise and fall just so they’d know when to get up and go shopping.”

  Gabe looked at me and winked. “Where’s Sam?” I asked. Gabe’s face turned sober as he picked up one of Dove’s huge baking-powder biscuits. He passed the plate to me.

  “Left early,” Dove said, sitting down next to Gabe, a big smile on her face. “Said he had to catch the early waves down by Morro Rock. Apparently he heard through the grapevine that all the chicks surf the north side of the rock.” She cackled. “My, he’s a nice young man. Helped me pound out the dough for my biscuits early this morning. Has a marvelous singing voice. I’m going to try to get him to join the church choir.”

  “He won’t be here long enough for that,” Gabe said succinctly.

  Dove raised her eyebrows and didn’t comment. “What’re you doing today, honeybun?”

  I bit into a thickly buttered biscuit and chewed before answering. “Going to clean up some last details about the festival. Give the museum one last going over. And I’m having lunch with Elvia and her mom.”

  “How is Sofia? That heart spell must have ’bout scared her to pieces.”

  “Doing great, Elvia says. Doctor says it was just stress. Elvia and the brothers are thinking about buying her a treadmill, but they’re sure she won’t use it. Rafael and Brenda just got back from Hawaii and brought her some fresh pineapple, so she’s making atole.”

  Gabe’s eyes brightened. “My grandmother used to make that whenever we visited her in Mexico. Bring me some, okay?”

  “Sure.” I turned back to Dove. “Now, about you and Garnet . . .”

  Dove picked up her plate and stood up. “I don’t want to discuss that scarlet woman. If she has the nerve to call, just tell her I said Matthew 7:23.” She tossed her plate in the sink. “I cooked, y’all can clean up. I have a Historical Society meeting this morning.” She stomped out of the room.

  Gabe looked at me in confusion. “Got a Bible handy?”

  I sighed. “I don’t need one. She and Garnet have bandied that verse back and forth for as long as I can remember: ‘Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.’ ”

  Gabe gave a delighted laugh and started clearing the table. “That’s great.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s see how funny you think it is when Dove is still here two weeks from now.”

  He gave me a serious look as he stacked dishes in the dishwasher. “Two weeks from now this house better be occupied by only two people.”

  “Gee,” I replied. “I wonder where we’re going to live.”

  When I arrived at the museum, it became immediately apparent that tempers and nerves were running short. Nora’s murder had added a ribbon of tension to the festivities. Inside the museum our head docent, Mildred Posner, was training a group of five senior citizens.

  “Here’s our illustrious leader now,” Mildred said. “I was just telling them about the first murder you solved during the antique-quilt exhibit last November.” Dark eyes sparkled mischievously behind her thick glasses.

  “Mildred,” I said, “that’s not supposed to be a part of the tour.”

  “I know, but you have to admit it gives the place ambience.”

  “Not the kind we’re trying to achieve.” Laughter rippled through the small group. I answered with a perfunctory smile. I didn’t want to discourage anyone who wanted to get involved, but to them the murders here were just another piece of gossip, a sort of urban ghost story, but to me they were a very real and sometimes still frightening memory.

  “What are you teaching them today?” I asked, changing the subject.

  She perused her note cards. “We’ve gone through the history of the adobe and of the Sinclair family. I was just going to start the tour of the storytelling quilts. I read all the histories last night.”

  “Mind if I follow along?”

  “Not at all. You can tell me if I get anything wrong.”

  The first quilt was made by a woman in Morro Bay who had been married for fifty-three years to a captain of a commercial fishing boat. Waiting for Henry was its name. Incorporating the traditional quilt pattern Ocean Waves and using a mixture of hand-dyed multicolored fabric with touches of nautical fun prints, she created a Grandma Moses-style scene of a man out on a wildly tossing ocean hauling in nets, while on a high bluff in a blue-and-white saltbox house his wife stands leaning against a silver widow’s walk looking out to sea. Around her shoulders was a bright patchwork quilt embroidered with tiny little fish.

  The typed card next to the quilt read, “I spent many hours ‘waiting for Henry’ and worrying every day about whether the sea would give him back to me. Quilting was a real blessing and comfort to me during those stormy days and nights. And fish, which have supported Henry and me all our married life and sent our two kids through college, always seem to sneak their way into my quilts, whether I intend them to be there or not. The fisherman’s nets are actually strings from the nets my husband used before retiring—thank the Lord—three years ago.”

  I followed Mildred through the tour of thirty quilts in the display and was still delighted by each quilt even though I’d studied them closely myself before interviewing the quilter and recording her story. Most of the quilts followed a common style in story quilts—capturing a moment in the artist’s life and freezing it much like a photograph. There were quilts that told of summer days at the beach or mountains, a favorite pair of shiny black tap shoes, a great-grandfather’s smelly pipe, a devastating flood that killed a family’s three hundred chickens. Tiny moments of people’s lives recreated, using myriad pieces of fabric, leather, buttons, and beads.

  One especially delightful entry was by a black woman about her grandmother, a native of Tennessee. The title of the quilt was My Grandmama’s Flags. Bordered by a Peace and Plenty pattern, the center was an array of colorful flags from all the states where her grandmother had family. In the center was a tiny woman with skin the color of milk chocolate sitting in a porch swing underneath a flagpole displaying the American flag. Behind her head, like a huge halo, was an array of smiling faces ranging in color from creamy coffee to rich mahogany.

  “My grandmama collects flags from wherever she has family. We were taught from the time we were young children that the first thing we had to do if we moved out of Tennessee was to send her a flag of the state or country we lived in. She has a flagpole in front of her small cabin in Tennessee and whenever one of her children or grandchildren came to visit her or on their birthdays, they can always know that their flag will be waving over her log cabin. She taught all of her kids and grandkids how to quilt. Out of fifty-seven of us, thirty-five are still quilters, including my father. This quilt is my salute to a very special lady, who at eighty-eight still cooks all day every Saturday to make meals to take to the ‘old
people’ at the retirement home.”

  When we reached Evangeline’s quilt, though, even after seeing so many intricate and touching quilts, it elicited an amazed murmuring from the docents-in-training. Evangline’s details of Cajun life and the intricate needlework in each of the twelve squares gave her quilt a quality not unlike a painting by one of the masters. It could be rediscovered again and again, as each time you viewed it, another detail revealed itself.

  After the group moved on to a bold surrealistic quilt incorporating and celebrating the stylistic features and Native American themes of the Canadian artist M. Emily Carr, I lingered in front of Evangeline’s quilt. The Cajun culture had always fascinated me. It brought back wonderful memories of a summer trip with Dove when I was ten and visited an old school friend of hers in Houma, Louisiana. We went to a Cajun dance called a fais do do in a concrete-block VFW building, where I learned to eat crawfish and danced with an old Cajun man whose face was as wrinkled as used tinfoil. Because of his perfect timing and ability to dance with two partners, he had the ladies lined up waiting for their turn, toes anxiously tapping.

  I studied each of her squares, admiring the details, and paused for a long time to study the Cajun dance-scene block that reminded me so much of the one in my childhood memories. I remember Dove’s friend Doris telling me to ferme ta bouche—shut your mouth—about going to the dance when we returned to Aunt Garnet’s. Aunt Garnet was an old-fashioned Hardshell Baptist and thought any kind of dancing the pure work of the devil.

  I strained on my tiptoes to see the top three squares—a bayou scene that showed a pelican in which, if you looked closely in his white chiffon beak, you could see tiny handmade fabric fish. The middle square held a row of babies lying on a quilt-covered bed while the grown-ups danced at the fais do do. I’ d heard Evangline talk about this square when she was making it. If you undid their tiny diapers, you could tell whether they were boy babies or girl babies. That was the kind of playful detail that made Evangeline’s work so special. In the upper right square a woman held a baby in a blue flannel blanket as her husband napped in a brass bed covered with a finely stitched miniature crazy quilt. Staring at it, the overhead track lighting caused my eye to catch a glint of something. Too far away for me to see closely, I grabbed the rickety wooden stool from behind the gift-shop counter and carried it over to the quilt. The glint, I could see at closer inspection, came from a small glass bead Evangeline had sewn right underneath the woman’s dark brown eyes. That puzzled me. Did it represent a tear? What was she crying about? Was something wrong with her baby? I opened the tiny flannel blanket held closed by a strip of Velcro and found . . . nothing. Nothing? Where was the baby? That wasn’t a detail Evangeline would leave out. Before I could inspect the square any closer, a gruff voice startled me.