Steps to the Altar

by Earlene Fowler

  “I was asked by the historical society to catalog her belongings.”

  “Part of the Sullivan house reconstruction, no doubt.”

  I nodded. “When I started going through her things, I just became interested in the crime. I read her love letters to Garvey and they’ve made me suspect that she’s innocent.”

  He sat back in his chair and rested his hands over his small belly. “Fair enough. So, convince me.”

  That had always been his method as a teacher and was one that worked well with history students. He taught us that history was more than just recorded facts, that history was also the remembered past. That people’s memories, oral history, whether written or verbal, was as accurate, if not more accurate, than the facts found in newspapers and other official historical documents.

  “Memory is more than just a function of electrical currents in your brain,” he would lecture us in his soft, monotone voice. The voice that would often lull many of his students into a dreamlike stupor on warm spring days. I, fascinated by the whole concept of memory and time and how the past and the present blend every second into one, never dozed in his classes. “Remember, humans are the only animals that know that we live at the same time we actually live. What a gift that is.” He’d clasp his hands together in wonder.

  “Well,” I said slowly, trying to collect my thoughts and present a concise, believable reason why I thought she might be innocent. “I don’t so much believe she didn’t kill Garvey as that maybe the whole story wasn’t told. I think, no, make that sense, that maybe she didn’t, but I know for sure that we don’t know the whole story.” I sat forward, trying to convince my former teacher’s noncommittal face. “I know, I’m not being clear. But it’s her letters to him. They were so . . . loving and hopeful . . . that I can’t imagine her falling in love with another man and plotting with him to kill her husband. Not so quickly. I mean, it was only three years after they met that this happened.” I threw up my hands in exasperation. “When I say it out loud, I know how ridiculous it sounds. I know letters can lie. I know that even the most sincere love can go sour.”

  I heard my voice catch with that statement and continued quickly, trying to cover it. “I also know that back during the war there were lots of marriages of convenience as well as those done on the spur of the moment, and it appears that Maple and Garvey’s might have been one of those. But it just seems to me that everyone assumed she killed him without looking deeper into it. I mean, maybe the guy she was supposedly having an affair with did it. He disappeared too, from what I hear.”

  “Mitchell Warner,” he said. “Worked as a reporter for the San Celina Tribune during the war years. Part of the sporting goods store Warners.” He scratched the side of his nose with a finger. “So, have you questioned any of the Warner family yet?”

  I shook my head no. “I decided to start with picking your brain and go from there. This is my game plan.” I opened my notebook and read off to him the list I had made at the library last night.

  “One, see Professor Hill.” I smiled at him. “Two, find out if police file for Sullivan murder is still available. Get copy. Three, read old newspaper accounts of the crime. Four, interview Warner family members about Mitchell Warner. Five, check Internet for whereabouts of Maple Sullivan and Mitchell Warner.” I glanced up at him. “That’s a long shot, I know. They most likely took on new identities, but you should never leave off doing something just because it seems obvious. Some teacher told me that.”

  His eyes crinkled in approval. “Good girl.”

  I continued reading him my list. “Six, find out where historical society keeps Garvey’s belongings and go through them. Seven, question people alive during war years about the crime.” I looked up from my notebook. “I’m hoping to find a cop that worked on the case, though that’s probably expecting the impossible.” I flipped to a clean page. “That’s it so far, though I’m hoping you’ll give me some more directions.”

  “Sounds like you’re doing just fine on your own, my dear. You learned your lessons well. What does your husband think of your investigation?”

  I chewed on my bottom lip for a moment, then said, “I haven’t talked much with him about it. He’s pretty busy with modern-day crime these days though I imagine he’d be glad to know I was working on something that has a very low danger level.”

  Russell chuckled and stroked his goatee. “I would imagine so. Your exploits have put him in the hot seat a few times, I’d venture to guess.”

  I grimaced. “Your guess would be accurate. Anyway, what do you remember about the incident? If I recall correctly, you were in your early teens at the beginning of the war. And your father was mayor, right?”

  “Good memory. That’s right, he ousted Garvey Sullivan’s father, Arthur, though Arthur wasn’t too upset about it. Arthur Sullivan didn’t have time for politics during those years, he was too busy making money. During the war the Sullivans grew even wealthier than they already were raising beef for the military, overseeing the construction on Camp Riley as well as owning quite a few of the other businesses in town that served the military and their families. He and Brady O’Hara competed neck and neck in the department store wars. It was a joke among the locals about which Irishman was going to win out. My mother preferred Sullivan’s. She said their selection was better, but I suspect it had more to do with the store being five blocks closer to our house. Arthur and Garvey were busy men during those years.”

  “Why wasn’t Garvey in the service?”

  “Age. He turned forty shortly after the war started.”

  I nodded, my guess verified. “How old was Maple? I can’t seem to find that anywhere.”

  “A lot younger than Garvey. Early twenties, I’d guess.”

  “Quite a difference.”

  “Yes, and it caused some talk, if I remember correctly.”

  “Did you ever cross paths with them?”

  “Saw Garvey lots of times. His father, Arthur, was very helpful to my father when he was taking over the mayorship. Father used to take me to lunch with Arthur and Garvey Sullivan and I’d listen to them talk about budgets and working with the city council. It mostly bored me until the conversation turned to wrangling bulls and cattle drives. I had brief dreams of being a cowboy then, when I wasn’t dreaming of being a fighter pilot and shooting down Messerschmidts for God, the flag, and Franklin Roosevelt.”

  I laughed at the picture of my intellectual, soft-spoken teacher being either a cowboy or a fighter pilot. “What did you think of Garvey?”

  He pulled at the side of his cheek. “He didn’t talk much. Wasn’t at all like his father, who was one of those Irishmen who had a story for every occasion. My father, who was quite garrulous himself, often said that Arthur was a hard act to follow. Arthur drew people to him like crows to a ripe cornfield. The man loved to laugh, as they say. And as genetics is wont to do, Garvey was the polar opposite. He was quiet and thoughtful. He always handed me a quarter after lunch and told me to buy myself some comics, that the laughs were on him. But he never smiled when he said it.”

  “He sounded like a nice man.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what Garvey was. A nice man. Nothing bold or loud or special, at least in the way the world calls special. I never saw him say a bad word or snap at anyone. He was meticulous and careful. That’s the best word I would describe him as, careful. As personable as his father was, he also had a firecracker temper that was legend among his employees.”

  “Maybe that’s why Garvey was so quiet and careful,” I said.

  “Could be.”

  After jotting a few lines down in my notebook I said, “So, what about Maple? Did you ever meet her? What were your impressions of her?”

  He leaned farther back in his chair, a look of almost adoration smoothing out his fine wrinkles. “Ah, Maple Bennett Sullivan. I have a confession to make.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Don’t forget, I’m married to the police chief. I’m morally obligated to report any c
rime to him.”

  He chuckled. “My dear, if people were arrested for this, our jails would be a thousand times more crowded than they currently are. She was my first crush. And oh, what a crush it was.”

  “You sly devil,” I said, slapping his knee. “Tell me all about her. Not that any of it will be accurate now, seeing as you viewed her through the cheesecloth of a teenage boy’s lust.”

  “She was simply the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” he said, reaching over and picking up his mug of coffee. “Not counting Marie, of course.”

  “Good thing you added that because I was going to rat on you.”

  “Wouldn’t have to. Marie knows everything about me, I promise. You can’t be married forty-three years and hide much.”

  “So, about Maple.”

  “Maple Sullivan was the first woman who treated me like I was something besides a gangly adolescent even when I still was one. She had a way of listening to you that made you feel as if whatever you were telling her was worthy of a book. I’m sure I bored her to tears with my thirteen-year-old opinions on Hitler and Mussolini, but she listened and asked questions as if she were going to write a feature article for Life. That’s probably what made her such a crackerjack reporter.”

  “I was going to ask you about that. Wasn’t it pretty unusual for a woman to be a newspaper reporter in the forties? I looked through some old Tribunes yesterday at the library, and except for the society pages, all the bylines were given to men.”

  “Women were taking over a lot of men’s jobs back then, but you’re right, it was unusual. Maple was a very good writer and it didn’t hurt that her father-in-law owned the newspaper.”

  I flipped a page over on my notebook and wrote that down. “Yes, that probably helped. I haven’t found out much about her. I’ve figured out through her letters and their wedding announcement that they met in Kentucky when she was working as a waitress. That was the beginning of March 1942. It appears they had a fast three-day courtship and he asked her to marry him. They exchanged twelve letters, at least that’s how many she wrote him. Two months later on May first, they were married at the Santa Celine Mission. The announcement said her father and mother were Kentucky farmers. Her letters indicated that her father didn’t own the land he farmed so I assumed he was either a tenant farmer or a sharecropper. Not a society girl by any means.”

  “That she wasn’t,” Russell agreed. “That’s what was so refreshing about her, I think. She never mentioned her life before coming to San Celina, at least not in my young presence, but I remember when she joined us for lunch a few times, she always waited until the men had started out and she went back and added money to the tip. As an idealistic youth, I found that utterly charming. As I do even more now. That small act certainly substantiates her background.” He leaned back in his chair and stared at a child’s painting of Laguna Lake on his wall. His eyes grew dreamy behind his tortoiseshell glasses. “She had the most beautiful, wavy dark brown hair. The color of bittersweet chocolate.”

  I hated interrupting his memories, but the color of her hair and his remembered adolescent longings really didn’t tell me much about the woman. “Russell, tell me the truth, do you think she killed her husband?”

  His eyes focused again and he looked at me thoughtfully. “Well, she was a young woman full of life. Always happy and busy, interested in what was going on around her. Only went through the eighth grade, but you’d never know it. I’d venture to say if they’d tested her IQ, she would have been close to a genius. But there wasn’t a single snobbish air about her even though her husband was one of the most prominent men on the Central Coast, indeed, in California.”

  “So,” I said, smiling. “You didn’t answer my question. Do you think she had an affair and killed her husband to be with her lover?”

  He inhaled deeply, letting it out in an even deeper sigh. “My girl, with all his prominence and education, Garvey was no match for her. As I said, he was a rather sober individual. I can’t even imagine what those two would have had to talk about when they were alone. And he was so much older than her . . .”

  “So you’re saying that it’s not inconceivable that she’d look for fun somewhere else. Like with another reporter at work.”

  He nodded, his face miserable. He obviously didn’t like thinking about his first crush being so human as to have a tawdry affair with a fellow employee. “Mitchell Warner would have been a real attraction to any young woman. Smart, rich, fun, closer to her own age.”

  “Why wasn’t he in the service?”

  “Some medical reason, I imagine. That was the only reason a man was let out of the draft during the war. He played football during his college years so he was fit at one time. But who knows? He was the baby in the family, the apple of his mother’s eye. It wouldn’t be the first time some political strings had been pulled to keep some mother’s son out of a war.”

  “So he worked for the Sullivans at the Tribune. Why didn’t he work in his father’s sporting goods store?”

  “The Tribune was only partially owned by the Sullivans. The Warner family owned the other half.”

  “Those prominent families back then had all these interesting connections.”

  “Not unlike today, my dear. Oh, and one last bit of information. Mitchell and Garvey were best friends even though there was a fifteen-year difference in their ages. Both loved to hunt and fish.”

  “That verifies what Nadine told me.” I sighed and leaned back in my chair. “My belief in Maple’s innocence is getting a little rocky, I must admit.”

  He ran his fingers through his graying mop of hair. “No one would love it better than me for you to find out that Maple wasn’t involved with the death of Garvey Sullivan, but I must admit, it’s a long shot.”

  I closed my notebook and stood up. “It certainly can’t hurt me to ask a few questions and do a little research.” Besides, I thought, it’ll keep me busy while Del is hanging around. Better my imagination run wild with a past affair than a possible current one. My stomach churned when I actually thought the word I’d been conciously avoiding.

  “Finding out more about the past only helps us prepare better for the future,” Russell said, standing up and holding out his hands to me. “That is, if we heed and learn the lessons from the past.”

  I took his hands and squeezed them. “Well said, Professor Hill.”

  Outside, the sunny day was already waning. Storm clouds hovered over the tops of the hills surrounding San Celina, threatening another downpour. This unpredictable weather so close to the Mardi Gras festival and parade was making everyone involved skittish. Twice in the past the festival and parade had to be called off because of stormy weather, and a lot of people were disappointed because a year’s worth of work was for nothing. Hopefully, the clouds would just hang out and look menacing until after Saturday.

  I stood next to my truck in the parking lot trying to decide my next move. Though I knew I had a lot of things I should be doing instead of this probably futile investigation of a crime that no one cared about anymore, something in me wouldn’t let up. I dialed D-Daddy at the museum on my cell phone to check on Scout.

  “He’s doing fine, ange,” D-Daddy said. “He’s havin’ him a good ole time with me, him.”

  “I’m going up to Paso Robles so I’ll be back later than I thought. How long do you plan on staying there?”

  “Don’t you worry now. I’ll keep the pooch until I’m done, then if you’re not back, I’ll drop him off at your house. Put him in the backyard.”

  “D-Daddy, you are a sweetheart. Thanks.”

  “Anything for you. By the way, your fella, he called.”

  “Oh, what did Gabe want?” Usually, these days, he dialed my cell phone because it was the only sure way to reach me.

  “Not Gabe, your other fella.”

  Why would Daddy call me at the museum? He never used the phone unless it was an emergency. “Is Dove all right?”

  “I guess she is,” D-Daddy
said, chuckling. “But I wouldn’t know. I mean your other fella, Hud.”

  I tried not to growl into the phone. “D-Daddy, that’s not funny. And he’s not my fella.”

  “Tell him that. He wanted to know where you were, what you were up to. I told him you was off investigating a murder.”

  I groaned. “I wish you hadn’t told him that. He’s supposed to be helping me catalog the contents of Maple Sullivan’s trunks and nothing else. I don’t want him involved in . . . this other thing.”

  “Sorry,” D-Daddy said, his rough voice contrite. “Didn’t know what you was doing was a secret.”

  “It’s not. I just . . . oh, forget it. I’ll tell him myself. Thanks for taking care of Scout. I’ll see you at the festival tomorrow.”

  “Good hunting,” he said.

  Before I could even put my key in the ignition, my cell phone rang. I checked the display. It was Elvia.

  “Hey, Mrs. Littleton-to-Be, what’s new?”

  “Aragon-Littleton,” she replied. “And I just wanted to remind you of our appointment tomorrow morning.”

  I was quiet for a moment, frantically searching my memory. Appointment? I didn’t remember any appointment for Saturday morning. The Mardi Gras festival was tomorrow and then I had the charity costume ball that evening. What had I forgotten?

  “At Jamaica You Beautiful,” Elvia said, exasperated. “Facials and manicures and a trial run on my hair for the wedding.” Her voice paused dramatically. “You forgot, didn’t you?”

  “No, no, I didn’t . . .” I started, then gave up and said, “Shoot, yeah I did. What time are we supposed to be there?”

  “Eight A.M. We specifically made it that early so you could get to the craft booths by ten. Benni, what is wrong with you these days? I’m the one who should be distracted, not you.”

  “I’m fine. I just left my date book at home. So, what are you and Emory going as to the costume ball?”