Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?

by Jaye Watson

  "Johnny Banister wasn't the world's easiest man to get along with, but he was a good man," Mr. Jacobs was saying. "He'd lend a hand without being asked, if he saw someone in trouble. Even after his son was grown too old for the Scouts, he kept on working with them, taking on boys from broken homes and treating them like his own. Once he retired, he volunteered once a week at the Red Cross, and he never failed to lend a hand at the church's annual rummage sale."

  Boy Scouts? Grandad? Who never had a good word for the neighborhood kids?

  "When his son, Wally, drowned, the heart went right out of Johnny..."

  Emaline closed her mind to Mr. Jacobs' words. She couldn't plug her ears, but she could refuse to listen. I'll have to hold an estate sale. Clear out the house before I can sell it. But first I'll need to go through everything, see what I want to keep...

  "Let us pray..."

  Caught unawares, Emaline quickly bowed her head as Reverend Gregson delivered a final prayer. When the funeral director came to escort her past the casket, she almost turned and ran. Instead she kept her eyes carefully on the spray of gladiolus draped across the coffin until she was right beside it. Then she closed her eyes.

  She couldn't look at his face.

  She had the horrible feeling that if she did, his dead eyes would open and accuse her.

  The graveside service was mercifully brief. The morning's drizzle had turned into steady rain, blown almost crossways by a gusting southerly wind. Despite the canopy, her shoes were soaked and her skirt was dripping. Beside her Jared shivered beside her in his leather coat. He might be stylish, but he was certainly not dressed for the weather.

  As the mourners started to drift away, Jared said, "How come you're holding a reception? That's just weird."

  "It's customary. People expect it." Gladys had advised her to, and she'd agreed it was a good idea. While she wasn't able to pretend to be overcome with grief, she was not going to do anything to make people think she was glad to be rid of Grandad.

  Even if she was.

  * * * *

  Probate dragged on forever. Even though she was both principal beneficiary and executor, there were still legal hoops to jump through. She stayed in the house while she slowly inventoried everything. It was heartbreaking toil, because Grandad had never given or thrown anything away.

  She found half a dozen boxes in the attic, carefully labeled 'Wally'. Inside them was the story of her father's life, from infancy to death. A birth announcement, grad school report cards, high school yearbooks. A photo album from her own childhood, showing her mother and father young and happy, showing her a bright, cheerful child with fat, rosy cheeks and a wide, carefree grin.

  She stopped there, setting the rest of the boxes aside, knowing what they held but unable to deal with what happened later. There had been no happily ever after for Wally and Florence Banister.

  Someday she'd sort their contents, but not now. She had an inventory to complete, a probate to close.

  She moved on to boxes of old tax returns. Thirty years of them. Complete with backup receipts and records.

  "Didn't Grandad ever throw anything away?" But she patiently went through them all, for there should be information about improvements to the house. No sense in not taking all the deductions she could when she sold it.

  * * * *

  "I thought that was you over here? Enjoying the play?"

  Emaline turned slowly, until she was facing Detective Jordan. Although she hadn't seen him, hadn't spoken to him for six months, she'd recognized his voice immediately. "Yes, I am. It's exciting." She'd always been a fan of Agatha Christie, and this revival of Witness for the Prosecution was superbly staged. Although her stomach was roiling, she forced herself to smile. "Are you here for pleasure, or is this a professional visit?"

  His chuckle seemed to wrap itself around her heart. "I'm a murder mystery fan. Never miss a play or movie, especially when it's a classic like this."

  "Me too. And books. I've got every one of Christie's."

  "I'm a Travis McGee fan myself. He's sort of my role model. Or at least a model for the role I'd like to play, if I didn't have this old-fashioned work ethic." Stepping to her side, he cupped her elbow in one big hand. "Let's get out of this mob. Hard to hear yourself think."

  Adroitly he maneuvered her into an alcove where he could stand between her and the intermission crowd. His wide shoulders and solid body made a good sound barrier.

  "How are you doing, dealing with your grandfather's estate and all? I know it can be a real strain."

  Was there suspicion in his voice? Again her stomach clenched. She willed her voice to be steady. "I imagine the tangle of red tape is no worse for me than anyone. Fortunately Grandad updated his will about five years ago. He made no major changes in his estate since then, so probate is relatively uncomplicated. Just time-consuming." A good thing, too. She wasn't sure what she would have done if Grandad had carried out his threat to revise his will before... Don't go there. Don't ever go there.

  "That's good. I--" The chime sounded for the last act. He grimaced. "Look, I'd like to see you again. Are you busy this Friday?"

  She felt a stab of surprising disappointment. "I am. I have a standing date...--"

  Another grimace, this one accompanied by a quick lowering of his dark brows.

  Good heavens! Is he hitting on me? "My girlfriends," she said quickly. "We meet for dinner and a show. Every week." She wondered what would happen if she didn't show up because she had a date with a man. They had all agreed that only fire, flood or disaster would prevent their weekly get-together, and for a long time everyone had kept her vow.

  The crowd had all but disappeared. "I guess--" she said.

  At the same time he said, "Time to go back--"

  "I'll call you," he said, as they parted.

  She wished he would.

  Remembering what he did for a living, she hoped he wouldn't.

  * * * *

  The bottle was still in the cupboard. It sat innocently beside the bottle of vanilla. Almond Extract, 36 percent alcohol by volume. There was about a quarter inch of liquid in it, too much to throw away.

  Too dangerous to keep.

  Emaline reached for it, then drew her hand back. She couldn't simply toss it into the trash, and pouring it down the toilet was out of the question.

  She turned to the stove, where a pot of soup simmered. She'd made and frozen it last summer, when a long spell of hot, sunny days had ripened far more tomatoes than she and Grandad and all the families on the block could use.

  If she went ahead with her plan to sell the house and buy a condo, would she find one where she could have a garden?

  Don't be silly! You don't need a garden.

  But she did. There was something elemental about digging in the rich, dark soil, watching the growth of the seeds, the ripening of the fruit. Every summer, when she picked the first tomato, the first bean, the first cucumber, she felt...awed. Almost as if she should worship Nature, for the miracle of turning sunlight and water into green, growing things.

  She forced her thought back to the incriminating bottle. She had to dispose of it. Somehow.

  I suppose I could bury it.

  But where? In the back yard would be tempting fate, particularly if she decided to sell. What she needed was a place where it would stay in the ground indefinitely. Like under a...a tree, a bush. She'd buy a rhododendron and plant it in the back yard. And before she put the big root ball in the ground, she'd carefully inter the little brown bottle.

  Satisfied she'd found a solution to the bottle problem, Emaline gave the soup one last stir and turned the burner to simmer. As she was pouring herself a celebratory glass of Riesling, the phone rang.

  She almost didn't answer it, certain it was someone seeking her vote. They always called at dinnertime. As if she'd vote for anyone who called her with a recorded message. If they didn't care enough to call her in person, why should she care enough to vote for them?

  At the fifth ring
, she decided it must be a real live human being. "Hello?"

  "Emaline Banister?" A hard voice. A voice used to getting answers.

  A cold knot of fear formed in her gut. "Y-yes?"

  "Harry Jordan here. I-- did I catch you at a bad time?"

  The knot thawed a bit. Only a bit. He was a police detective, for goodness sake. "No I was... just fixing some soup for supper."

  "A good night for it. I just about drowned coming in from the car."

  Surely he wouldn't make small talk if-- "You should have walked from the bus stop with me. It's two blocks." She tried to inject a note of humor into her voice. Instead it trembled, ever so slightly.

  "Sounds like you haven't gotten warm yet. I should let you go back to your soup."

  She twisted the cord around her finger. "No I-- It's got to simmer a while. How can I help you, Detective?"

  "Harry. Please call me Harry." He didn't sound so big and bad now. Almost hesitant, in fact. "This isn't an official call."

  Thank god! "Oh." Emaline chewed her lip. She couldn't just hang up on him. Could she?

  "Look, I'd like to see you. Uh... socially, I mean." A long silence. "Ms. Banister, I'm not usually this gauche. I guess I'm out of practice. What I'm trying to do is ask you to have dinner with me."

  Her silence was just as long. Talk about being torn. She'd liked him the first time she met him, even as she feared him. If only he weren't a cop.

  What are you worrying about? There's no reason for him to suspect you of anything. Have dinner with the man. It's not like he's asking you to sleep with him or anything.

  A shiver of--desire?--made her insides quiver. "Look, Det... Harry, I appreciate your asking, but I--"

  "Just dinner. I promise." His voice was a soft purr, like rich fur against bare skin. "I'd really like to get to know you better."

  Her willpower trickled away like snow under a warm sun. "All right." Were those weak, muted words hers?

  "I've got Saturday off, for a change. How about I pick you up about seven? We'll go somewhere comfortable, somewhere I don't have to wear a tie."

  That meant no romantic setting. No candlelight and wine. Thank goodness. "That sounds great. I'll see you then."

  "I'm looking forward to it. Good night."

  She managed a weak good bye, before letting the receiver drop from nerveless fingers. Had she really just accepted a date from a cop? A homicide detective?

  You are out of your weak little mind!

  Somehow she tended to the soup, even ate most of a bowl. As she was cleaning the kitchen, she opened the spice cupboard to put away a bottle of dried oregano that had somehow escaped her earlier tidying. Sitting right there, at the very front of the shelf, was the bottle. The one she'd done her best to forget. Almond Extract, 36 percent alcohol by volume.

  I'll bury it tomorrow.

  When tomorrow came, she realized that the back yard was the last place on earth she should dispose of something so incriminating. Even if she didn't sell the house right away, she'd no intention of spending the rest of her life here. What if the new owners decided to landscape? Not many people were interested in old fashioned perennial borders surrounding raised bed vegetable plots.

  Where would she plant a rhody anyhow? No matter where she put it, the stupid thing would look out of place. Someone would be sure to wonder about it.

  The question plagued her dreams, leaving her foggy-brained and bleary in the morning. A good thing she only had routine work to do at the lab. She plodded through her morning routine, and shuffled down the sidewalk. She missed her regular bus, and the next one was always full by the time it got to her stop. So she stood, half asleep, all the way to town.

  Naturally the later bus made her miss her regular connection, so she stood all the way to Raleigh Hills too.

  That damned bottle sat in the back of her mind all day long. Perhaps that was why, when her bus passed the dark two-block section of Midland Avenue that bordered the cemetery where Grandad was buried, the answer to her dilemma came to her in a blinding flash.

  A long time ago she'd overheard a neighbor telling Grandad about planting a rosebush in the cemetery. "It's against the rules," the woman had said, "but if they don't catch you, they don't do anything about it, as long as you plant it nice and keep it out of the area where the graves are."

  Grandad, being the maverick he was, had approved. "Too damn many rules," he'd grumbled. "Senseless ones, mostly."

  She called in sick the next day. As soon as the nursery was open, she went down to look over their selection. Although it wasn't the season for planting rhodys, they had a small selection.

  Emaline read the tags on one after another. She wanted something that would grow to a decent size and bear spectacular flowers. The nicer the shrub, the less likely it was to be dug up. Finally she decided on one called Pink Pearl. The small picture on the tag said it had big trusses of seashell pink flowers and would grow to be eight to ten feet high in ten years.

  Perfect.

  She bought a bag of planting compost. If the cemetery soil was anything like that in Grandad's back yard, it needed all the help it could get. On the way home, she stopped by Grandad's grave and laid a bouquet of carnations on it. And picked the perfect spot for a rhody. Over near the far fence, in a corner where there were a couple of straggly looking deciduous shrubs and no empty gravesites nearby.

  That evening, in the misty October rain, she planted the thirty-dollar Pink Pearl in a sixty-dollar hole, just as her grandmother had always advised. "Pretend you're planting something twice as big, twice as expensive. That way the roots will have room to spread and the plant will know you cherish it."

  At the very bottom of the hole, she carefully laid the small brown bottle, after wiping it one last time with a dampened paper towel. Earlier she'd scrubbed it with detergent, and had since handled it with gardening gloves.

  She watered the rhody from the five-gallon container she'd brought, having barely managed to carry the heavy thing from her car to the hole. Once the soil was properly tamped around the root ball, she bundled the leftover soil into the tarp she'd piled it on and put it into the trunk of her car. A good thing I've been going to the gym. She'd have sore arm muscles tomorrow.

  There was no way she could hide the evidence of her activities, but she made the place as neat as she could. As she trudged back to her car, carrying the remaining planting compost, she wondered how long it would be before someone noticed the new shrub in the corner.

  When she got home, she cleaned her tools, dumped the soil and the compost into the vegetable beds, and took time to rake them smooth. Once the tools were put away, she dusted her hands. Now she could face Harry Jordan without a worry in the world.

  He was a very interesting man, something there had been all too few of in her life for the past ten years.

  * * * *

  Saturday arrived before she was ready for it. She spent the day working in the room where her grandfather had kept his collections of magazines. Shelf after shelf, some of them with magazines fifty or sixty years old. She had enjoyed the National Geographics when she was a child, but Car and Driver from 1953? Road and Track from 1968? She'd try Freecycle, but she had faint hope of them going anywhere but to the landfill.

  The timer went off at five thirty. Reluctantly she laid aside the July 1977 Sunset and stood, stiff from sitting in one place for several hours. She really should have stopped to stretch more often.

  Bathed and blow-dried, she was ready when Harry arrived a few minutes before seven. True to his word, he wore chinos and an open neck sport shirt. His corduroy jacket was soft with wear and his sneakers a little scuffed on the toes.

  "I hope you like barbecue," he said, as he held the door for her. "One of the guys at the shop told me about this great new place up in Northeast."

  "Love it," she admitted, "even though I know I shouldn't."

  "Nonsense. You can eat healthy all next week. Tonight we feast." He took her arm as they walked to his car, a slee
k red Acura. "I live on junk food all week, but I'll be dam...darned if I'll eat like that on weekends."

  "Grandad always accused me of being half rabbit. I eat a lot of salads," she confessed as she slid into the warm leather seat. "Oh, my, it's heated."

  He shut the door and walked around the front of the car. As he settled himself behind the wheel, he said, "Nothing but the best. I figure if I only buy a new car every six years or so, I can have what I want instead of what's practical." When he turned the key, a whole galaxy of lights appeared across the dashboard. "Do you like jazz?"

  The seductive notes of a noodling piano drifted out of the speakers. "Mm-mmm." She closed her eyes. When was the last time she'd felt so pampered?

  The evening only got better. The restaurant was a micro-brewery, offering a variety of house labels. Dinner was the next thing to decadent, with falling-off-the-bone spareribs, potatoes baked with crispy skins and delectable centers, tangy sour cream and melting butter topped with real bacon crumbles and fresh cut chives. Det... Harry recommended a hearty brown ale and she found it perfect.

  Their conversation was limited to ecstatic groans, muted growls as they gnawed bones clean, and the occasional hum of pure pleasure. When at last she sat back in her chair, she felt more relaxed, more comfortable, and more replete than she had in a long time.

  Harry ordered coffee. While they waited, he said, "I had a case this week that reminded me of you."

  Suddenly the dinner sat like a block of greasy ice in her belly. "Like mine? I didn't know I was a... a case."

  "I had to file a report on your grandfather, so that made it a case. This was similar. At first glance, anyhow. An old man who dropped dead after a big meal. The difference was, he had no reason to, other than over-eating."

  Emaline carefully poured sugar into her coffee. Too much sugar. "You suspect something... peculiar?"

  "I know damn well there's something peculiar. Trouble is, I can't put my finger on it. Not yet."

  Without thinking, she said, "But you will, won't you?"

  "Oh, yeah. I'll find out who killed him."

  He looked almost surprised at his own words.