Iris Avenue

by Pamela Grandstaff

Maggie felt sick at her stomach. She’d expected all sorts of questions but nothing that involved Gabe. Jamie was looking at her compassionately. Maggie knew she would have to share it sooner or later, and later might include a subpoena. She got up and went to the back wall of the office, opened the safe, and then used a key that only she possessed to open a locked box inside the safe.

  The letter, from her ex-boyfriend Gabe, had only recently come into her possession after being hidden in Margie Estep’s attic for seven years. Part of the reason she and Scott weren’t speaking was because he found the letter and didn’t immediately give it to her; she found it after he accidently dropped it. The other reason was detailed in the letter itself.

  The paper was now creased and somewhat tear-stained. Jamie treated the letter with care, as if he understood how precious it was to her, and he took his time reading it.

  When he finished, he said, “I’d like a copy.”

  Maggie had a small fax/printer/copier in her office, and made a copy for him before returning the letter to the box in the safe.

  “I’ve met him,” he said. “He seems like a nice guy.”

  “Who, Scott?”

  “No, your ex. Gabriel.”

  Maggie felt like she’d been punched in the gut.

  “When did you see him?” she asked.

  “Last week, in Florida.”

  “I didn’t know what happened,” Maggie said. “He just disappeared one night. I don’t even know if he’s telling the truth in the letter. Turns out I didn’t really know him at all.”

  “He said when I saw you to tell you he’s truly sorry he hurt you.”

  Maggie felt tears well up. Even though she thought she’d cried all she could over Gabe, she continued to find fresh grief with every revelation.

  “He’s getting out,” Jamie said.

  “I thought he got ten years,” she said.

  “He’s been a model prisoner, and he’s agreed to help us with our investigation in exchange for an early release.”

  “Where will he go when he comes out?”

  “Mrs. Crawford has agreed to let him stay with her.”

  “Lily Crawford?” she asked. “How did Lily get involved?”

  “She’s agreed to be responsible for him. She even offered to put up any bond necessary.”

  “But why would Lily do that?” Maggie asked.

  Maggie reflected that Lily knew them both well, and had been fond of Gabe, but not as anything more than a dear friend and neighbor. If Jamie knew more, he wasn’t saying.

  “When will he be here?” she asked.

  “In a few days,” Jamie said.

  “Great,” Maggie said. “Whether I like it or not.”

  “I know this is hard for you,” Jamie said. “I hate to be the one to bring you news that upsets you.”

  “Is there anything else?” Maggie asked him. She wanted him to go so she could think.

  “You saw your brother in prison before he escaped,” Jamie said.

  “Yes,” Maggie said. “He was worried someone inside was going to kill him. He said there was a price on his head.”

  “Did he mention any names?”

  “He said someone named Mrs. Wells was paying for the hit. He said even though Ava was paying back the money he ‘borrowed,’ it was personal between them. She wanted revenge.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He said he was sorry about what happened to Gabe.”

  “He apologized?”

  “Oh, not to me, or to his wife and kids, or anyone else in our family. No, Brian doesn’t think we count, for some reason. But he said Gabe wasn’t involved in what he did, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and took the fall for it.”

  “Have you heard from Brian since he escaped?”

  “No. I figure he’s long gone from here, don’t you?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “If he contacts me I’ll let you know. I wouldn’t help him.”

  “I got that feeling,” Jamie said.

  “It’s like living in my own personal soap opera,” Maggie told him. “I just wish it would end.”

  “Would your parents help him?”

  “Of course,” Maggie said. “They still think it’s all some huge mistake. We haven’t told them everything, trying to protect them. I don’t want them to be hurt anymore than they already have been.”

  “It will all come out at the trial, you know. What about your brother Patrick?”

  “He wouldn’t help Brian. He’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Is there some particular reason Patrick and Brian don’t get along?”

  “Same as with me,” Maggie said. “Brian’s a jerk.”

  “Your sister-in-law seems anxious that Patrick not be involved.”

  “She’s just trying to protect everyone,” Maggie said. “There’s no reason for you not to talk to Patrick.”

  “Can you think of any place Brian might go to hide?”

  “No,” Maggie said. “Up until a few weeks ago, I hadn’t seen or heard from him in over six years. Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “You seem too nice to be a fed.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “How does somebody decide to be an FBI agent?”

  “I was a paperweight for a long time,” he said.

  “A paperweight?”

  “I sat at a desk, papers came and went, and I stared at a computer all day every day. I went to lots of meetings. I was really bored.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I applied for more active duty.”

  “When was this?”

  “About five years ago.”

  “How many cases have you been on?”

  “Just this one.”

  “For five years?”

  “It’s complicated; there’s a long history and a widespread network. Careful, methodical work is more likely to bring about the desired result.”

  “Not a lot of gunplay, then.”

  “No,” he laughed. “No shoot-outs so far. Just a lot of interesting connections and coincidences.”

  “Which you can’t tell me about.”

  “No, sorry.”

  “I get the feeling you know a lot more about me than I think. Am I being paranoid?”

  “I do know a lot about you. You’re a pivotal person in this case. Your brother, ex-boyfriend, sister-in-law, and the police chief you dated are all involved in some way. I recently got to see the video of your meeting with your brother in prison.”

  “So there was no reason to ask me about it.”

  “Sorry, I have to corroborate facts. It’s part of my job.”

  “What part of me telling off my brother inspired you most?”

  “Well, your passion, for one thing. I thought, ‘I’d hate to be on the wrong side of this woman.’ But I also thought, ‘What a woman to have in your corner.’”

  “You said Scott was involved. Not in a bad way, I’m sure.”

  “He’s not in any trouble.”

  “He’s a good man,” Maggie said. “You can count on him.”

  “I can understand why he might bend the law a little for you. I might have done the same. I take it that relationship is over?”

  “Yes,” said Maggie. “No use dragging him down with us.”

  “Are you quite sure about that?” Jamie said.

  “I finally quit fooling myself,” Maggie said. “There doesn’t seem to be any point in believing my life is ever going to be normal or my family any more sane. If you know all there is to know about us you must agree.”

  “A lot of families are weird and crazy.”

  “Rose Hill definitely has a higher percentage. You’ll find out I’m right.”

  “Well, here’s my card,” Jamie said as he stood up. “Please call me if you hear from Brian or think of anything that might be helpful.”

  “Are you under cover? Do you want me to say you’re a book rep?”
r />   “I don’t mind people knowing who I am, but please don’t share what we talked about.”

  “No problem.”

  Jamie put on his coat and then stuck out his hand to shake Maggie’s. His handshake was warm, strong, and set off some alarm bells in Maggie’s own department of defense.

  “It’s been such a pleasure to meet you,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll cross paths again before this is all over. I’m looking forward to it.”

  He gave her a warm, knowing smile that implied the pleasure wasn’t purely professional. Maggie blushed again.

  After he left Jeanette stuck her head inside the office.

  “That was a damn fine looking man. I hope you bought a lot of whatever he’s selling.”

  “I did,” Maggie said. “I bought the whole package.”

  Hannah received a call from Caroline Eldridge, begging her to come out to her house and evict some raccoons. A self-determined spiritualist explorer, Caroline had inherited the lodge from her older brother, the recently murdered Theo. It was a stone and timber Craftsman era mansion that sat high atop a ridge between Rose Hill and the ski resort town of Glencora, overlooking Gerrymaine Valley and Bear Lake. The snow was still thick on the ground up there, and the temperature was always ten degrees lower than in Rose Hill.

  One of the Buddhist monks currently staying at the lodge answered Hannah’s ring outside the heavy front door. She was surprised to find he was a man about her size, with light freckled skin, hazel eyes, and wire-rimmed glasses. His head was shaved, but Hannah could tell his hair had been a mousy brown, much like her own. The incongruence of the camouflage-print thermal underwear shirt and leggings he wore underneath his bright orange robe was disconcerting at first. He also had on heavy wool hunting socks with his sandals.

  The man bowed deeply with his hands in a prayer formation in front of him. This was Hannah’s first experience with a monk of any persuasion, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do. Caroline had told her on the phone that she shouldn’t talk to them, but how in the world could she communicate what she wanted?

  “Hiya,” she said finally, after they each bowed to each other a few times. “Is Caroline home? She said there was a raccoon family living in the ceiling of the garage apartment. I’m going to try and catch them for her.”

  The monk backed toward the kitchen, bowing continually. Hannah followed him. As soon as they entered the kitchen he disappeared into what used to be the dining room. As he opened the door Hannah could hear chanting and the scent of sandalwood incense wafted in.

  Caroline was sitting at the kitchen table, her head in her hands.

  Hannah cleared her throat.

  “Oh, Hannah,” Caroline said as she looked up.

  “You okay?” Hannah asked.

  “I’m fine,” Caroline said. “It’s nothing a few days of warm weather wouldn’t cure.”

  “It won’t be warm up here until June,” Hannah said. “You may need to take a vacation before that.”

  “I can’t go anywhere while the monks are here,” Caroline said. “There’s too much to do and I have to take care of them.”

  “How long are they staying?”

  “Who knows?” Caroline said with a sigh.

  “That’s a pity,” Hannah said.

  “Oh, no,” Caroline said. “It’s a privilege to have them here; any inconvenience to me is far outweighed by the greater good. I’m not suffering at all; suffering is just an illusion.”

  “Are the raccoons you called about real?” Hannah asked, “Because I can’t justify the mileage on imaginary ones.”

  “They’re real and extremely noisy,” Caroline said. “I don’t want them harmed in any way, just relocated, if possible. They’re keeping Petula and Sven awake at night and heaven knows we all need our sleep; we get so little of it as it is. Not that I’m complaining. Some yogis go for months without sleep or food. I’m not quite that evolved yet. It helps that I’m vegan even though I’m considering becoming a fruitarian. It’s just that there is so little organic fruit available and you have to be sure it fell off the trees naturally and wasn’t removed forcibly; fruitarians consider that murder. You can’t be sure of the cruelty free purity of the fruit when it’s shipped in…”

  “That’s all really interesting,” Hannah interrupted. “But I need to get started, if you don’t mind. I have a humane trap I can set up and once they’re caught I’ll relocate them somewhere else. We need to figure out how they got in, though, and seal it up.”

  “Sven will do that,” Caroline said. “He’s handy. Have you met Petula and Sven? They’re from Stockholm. I met them at a conference in Seattle. They’re both Reiki masters and have completed all but the most secret levels of a Sacred Energy Medicine course I was involved in for awhile. They’re working for me to earn the money to pay for the last module. Once they complete the training they’ll be able to manipulate the electromagnetic field that surrounds us, that connects us all. It’s powerful magic and not just anyone can do it; you have to be born with the gift. Not many people understand the importance of the electromagnetic field. Did you know cell phones interrupt the radar that bees use to navigate? That’s why they’re disappearing at such a fast rate. It affects humans and animals as well but most people aren’t sensitive enough to detect the changes in the atmosphere…”

  Hannah wondered if maybe Caroline was starved for someone to talk to. The simplest question seemed to trigger a chronic bout of verbal diarrhea. Hannah’s attention wandered to the decorations tacked to the walls of the kitchen. One in particular caught her eye.

  “Um, Caroline,” Hannah said, as soon as Caroline stopped long enough to take a breath. “Who’s the monster guy?”

  She pointed to a large poster on the wall featuring what looked like a fierce, blue man-beast with long, pointy teeth holding a large wheel with his long, pointy claws. Each section of the wheel between the spokes had a little scene of Asian characters in different situations, some of which looked pretty dire.

  “That’s Yama, holding the wheel of time,” Caroline said. “He’s a Tibetan Buddhist deity who protects Buddhists. He was a monk who planned to meditate in a cave for fifty years in order to achieve enlightenment. In the last month of the forty-ninth year, robbers brought a stolen bull into his cave and cut off its head. When they realized Yama had seen them do it, they cut off his head as well.”

  “No wonder he looks so mad.”

  “Yama put on the severed bull’s head and terrorized all of Tibet. Finally Manjushri, Bodhisattva of Wisdom, manifested as an even scarier deity and defeated him. Yama then became a protector of Buddhism.”

  “It looks like he’s holding one of those View-Master disks like we had when we were kids.”

  “That’s the karmic wheel of life. The six realms represent samsara, into which beings are reborn. The nature of one’s existence is determined by karma, and these are the stages a soul goes through before reaching enlightenment.”

  “I though Buddhists were all peaceful and laid back,” Hannah said. “That scene right there looks more like hellfire and brimstone.”

  Caroline looked at Hannah as if she were an idiot.

  “If you want to learn more, I’d be glad to lend you some books,” Caroline said. “The monks teach a course of study in Zen Buddhism here at the lodge, if you’re interested.”

  “No, but thanks anyway,” Hannah said. “I’m currently blacklisted at Sacred Heart and the Methodist Church. No use pissing off the Buddhists as well.”

  “It’s very interesting…” Caroline began, but Hannah interrupted, “I’m sorry I can’t chat longer but I need to get started.”

  Caroline went to her office to get the key to the garage apartment, and then got sidetracked by a phone call. Hannah looked around the room. The monk who had answered the door came back in, bowed to Hannah and then stood quietly nearby, placid and calm.

  “So, no talking, huh?”

  He smiled kindly at Hannah and nodded.

  “Now, see,
” Hannah said, “that alone would keep me from being a good monk. I like to talk too much.”

  The man continued to smile benevolently.

  “I thought all of you would be Asian,” Hannah said. “I guess that was small-minded of me, thinking every Buddhist would look like the Dalai Lama. You actually look more like my brother Quinn. We’re always wishing Quinn would sit still and shut up for a few days.”

  There was a small poster held by magnets on the refrigerator titled “The Five Hindrances” and Hannah gestured to it.

  “Things to watch out for?” she said. “Like the seven deadly sins?”

  The man nodded.

  She read out loud, “Sensual Desire, Ill-Will, Sloth, Worry, and Doubt.”

  The monk nodded again.

  “Sounds more like Caroline’s to-do list,” Hannah said.

  The man’s eyes twinkled, and Hannah thought she detected the telltale signs of suppressed laughter.

  “Careful,” she said. “You’ll have to say ten Hail Buddhas if you laugh.”

  Caroline came in with the key and everybody bowed to everybody all over again.

  “Thanks, so much,” Caroline told Hannah as she handed her the key. “I appreciate your help.”

  “Anytime,” Hannah said as she went out. “I’ll bring the key back in a bit.”

  As Hannah removed the humane trap from the back of her truck a large, dark sedan came up the curving drive and parked in front of the lodge. Hannah dawdled so she could see who was in it. She was surprised to see bank president and political ass-kisser Knox Rodefeffer exit the vehicle and hurry up the steps to Caroline’s front door.

  Knox was a large, ungainly man with blinding white capped teeth and an unconvincing toupee. Although she personally found him horribly unattractive, Hannah had heard that his sexy secretary was also his mistress. Knox loved to name-drop his political connections and brag about his trips to Washington, D.C. If Rose Hill was a small pond, Knox was one of the biggest bottom feeders.

  Hannah wondered what business he had with Caroline Eldridge, and concluded he must be trying to get Caroline to put money in his bank, or to write a big fat check to one of his political cronies. Caroline had pledged to provide a match for a grant application Hannah and Drew were writing, to start a feral cat program and build a no kill animal shelter. Hannah hoped Caroline hadn’t forgotten about that, and thought she might mention it again before she left.