I talked to Nancy for a while longer, and then to one of my sister’s old boyfriends. Jannine swooped down on me every so often to introduce me to a new cluster of names and faces, and then marched off to refill the chip bowl or bring out more salad. I heard about Elvira Arujo’s hysterectomy, the hail as big as golf balls that had fallen a week earlier, and the Scout Jamboree which was being hosted that summer for the very first time in Silver Creek. There were the usual jabs at San Francisco (“Did you hear they just put heterosexuals on the endangered species list?”) and at Berkeley (“Don’t you mean Berserkley?"), and a sprinkling of lawyer jokes, most of them so dated I’d already forgotten the punch lines. Since I had little to contribute, I listened and for the most part kept my mouth shut.
As the night wore on I moved toward the edge of things, and let the drone of muted conversation roll over me like the gentle summer breeze. The night was warm, and the air thick with the sweet scent of prairie grass. It was the kind of evening we rarely got in the Bay Area, where the fog usually rolled in before sunset. I watched Jan nine’s two middle girls straddle the beam at the top of the play-structure, and wondered what my life would have been if I’d never left Silver Creek. It’s a peculiar feeling, finding yourself face to face with your past like that, reconciling what might have been with what is, especially when you find the neat little pictures in your head unexpectedly askew.
I was sitting on the back steps nursing my third can of beer when Eddie dropped down beside me, sloshing his own beer in the process. He’d clearly had many more than three.
“You look like an ad for some high class perfume or something, sitting over here in the moonlight like that.” He winked. “Course you always were a classy-looking gal.”
I humphed and inched to the left. I can spot a line a mile away, and this one was so blatant it practically blinked in neon.
Eddie, though, seemed to think he was onto something. He leaned toward me so that our shoulders bumped. “God, we had us some good times back in the old days, didn’t we?”
We’d had, in fact, only one real “time,” and I would hardly have called it good, even then. I seriously doubted that Eddie had found it very satisfying either.
“Real good,” Eddie added, listing further in my direction.
I let my eyes meet his. “So good that you dropped me like a hot potato right after that night in the shed.”
I could see him take a moment to reassemble the past. He poked at the can with his thumb. “Shucks, Kali, a girl like you, it scared me. Shook me up to think I was falling for you.”
I laughed. Even at sixteen I hadn’t been so much heartbroken as humiliated, although at that age the pain is about equal. “Hang it up, Eddie. I’m not interested.”
He looked hurt for a moment, then grinned. “You always were a hard sell.”
“You couldn’t have done better than Jannine in any case,” I told him. “She’s one in a million.”
He glanced in her direction, and a shadow crossed his face. “Yeah,” he said soberly, “I know.” Eddie finished his beer, crushed the can with one hand, then turned and asked, “You going to be around town for awhile?”
“Till the end of the week, I think. Why?”
“Maybe we could talk sometime.”
My expression must have given me away because he was quick to explain. “No, not like that. I mean professionally. Like, you know, as a lawyer.”
“You’ve got lawyers here in town.”
“Yeah, but Silver Creek is a small place. I think I’d feel better with someone who’s not in the thick of it.” He had an odd, uncertain look in his eyes I’d never seen before.
“You in trouble, Eddie?”
“Me?” He laughed. “No, I try to stay away from trouble.” He stood unsteadily. “I’m serious, Kali, I could use your help. I’ll give you a call the first of the week, okay?”
Actually, it wasn’t okay. Getting my father’s affairs in order was my first priority, and if I felt any hankering for legal work, all I had to do was call my secretary. There was bound to be a thick stack of messages, a good third of them labeled urgent. Besides, I didn’t want to become embroiled in whatever small town squabble Eddie had somehow fallen into. But I couldn’t think how to say any of that without coming across like a total stuffed shirt.
“Sure,” I told him, “talk to you then.”
As Eddie wandered off, I consoled myself with the thought that he would probably never call. Given his glassy-eyed look, I’d have given odds he wouldn’t even remember the conversation.
By the time I was ready to leave, the party had moved inside, but was nowhere near winding down. I searched out Jannine to say good-bye.
“Geez, Kali,” she said, wrapping me in an affectionate hug, “we never got a chance to really talk. How about coffee some day this next week? Or lunch, if you don’t mind bologna and processed cheese.”
“It’s a date,” I said, already looking forward to it. Somehow we’d picked up right where we’d left off, without any of the awkwardness I’d expected.
<><><>
Early Saturday morning I was awakened by the sound of hammering somewhere in the neighborhood. Not the gentle tap-tap of someone securing a loose board or two, but the steady, head-jarring whack of serious business. I rolled out of bed, ready to run down and deliver a piece of my mind. But by the time I’d dressed, stumbled over Loretta, and made it downstairs, I figured what the heck? I had intended to start early anyway. I made myself some coffee and dug in, working much more efficiently than I had the day before.
I filled box after box with donations to Goodwill, and an almost equal number of bags with stuff to be junked. None of the furniture was worth keeping, although it pained me to tag my mother’s favorite armchair for a donation. I hesitated, if only for a moment. But I liked my life streamlined; there simply wasn’t a place in it, or my house, for sentimentality.
By Sunday evening, I had finished going through most of the downstairs and had organized, on paper at least, the remainder of things that needed doing. I hadn’t begun going through my father’s financial records or getting the estate in order, but just seeing those steps spelled out on my long things-to-do list was enough to give me a sense of accomplishment.
Feeling pleased with myself and the progress I’d made, I took Loretta for an early morning walk Monday before breakfast. She’d been padding after me for days, her brown eyes following my every movement, oblivious to the fact that I was trying hard to ignore her. It struck me, with a degree of guilt, that she probably missed my father more than anybody.
On the way in I picked up the newspaper and tossed it on the kitchen table while I made myself a cup of coffee, a special decaffeinated grind I’d brought with me from home. Pulling the chair around so that the morning sun hit my back, I took a sip from my mug and opened the paper.
Eddie’s face smiled up at me from the center of the front page, right under the bold print headline—POPULAR HIGH SCHOOL COACH SLAIN.
Chapter 2
I read the accompanying story twice before any of it actually sank in. Even then, the words had a peculiar unreal cast to them. That a man could be drinking beer and laughing one day, and lying dead with bullet through his head the next—that was something I was having a difficult time getting a fix on.
It happens – I knew that. The pages of The San Francisco Chronicle attest to the fact daily. But the names are generally not names I recognize, the faces not those whose smiles have touched my own. And that, somehow, changed everything.
The newspaper account, though nearly two columns long, offered maddeningly little in the way of useful information. Eddie’s body had been found Sunday afternoon by a backpacker in the woods near the south fork of Silver Creek. Preliminary evidence indicated he’d been shot at close range sometime Saturday. There was no sign of a struggle. His car was found later, parked alongside the road about a half mile away. The remainder of the article was given over to highlights of Eddie’s career and testimonials f
rom former friends and colleagues.
My mind played the scene through time after time as I tried to make the words real, to give them the weight that would help me understand. But none of it fit.
Silver Creek runs down from the Sierras in two branches which join about ten miles west of town. The north fork offers spectacular views, picnic areas and, in summer, good swimming. The south fork is smaller, and the terrain around it much more rugged. Eddie’s body had been found near the spillway, a couple of miles from the main highway.
Although I’d not been there for years, I knew the area well, having spent more Saturday nights than I cared to remember drinking and necking along the same lonely stretch of unimproved county road. I couldn’t imagine what Eddie had been doing out there. It isn’t a place many people find attractive.
I scanned the article once more, looking for answers that simply weren’t there, then I stood and dumped my now lukewarm coffee into the sink. My appetite, as well as my thirst for world news, had deserted me.
I picked up the phone to call Jannine, then thought better of it. She was probably neck deep in condolences already, and the last thing I wanted to do was intrude on her sorrow. But I couldn’t simply send a little sympathy note either. I tossed the possibilities around in my head while I showered and finally came up with the idea of stopping by, briefly, with a meal or two. That was the only thing I could remember clearly from the period following my mother’s death—the scores of friends and neighbors who passed through, leaving in their wake, baskets and pots and Tupperware casseroles filled with nourishment for body and soul. Theirs had all been home-baked, of course, while I would have to rely on the local deli. My skills in the kitchen are pretty much limited to boiling water and opening packages, and I sometimes have trouble with the latter.
I had an appointment at the bank that morning to go over my father’s finances, but I could drop by Jannine’s on my way home. Maybe, by then, I’d have figured out how you comfort someone when there isn’t any comfort to be had.
<><><>
Mr. Meeder at the bank was very nice, but also painstakingly slow. Although I’d arrived at ten, as scheduled, it was past noon when we finished, or, more accurately, when I’d had about as much as I could take. I hadn’t been able to find the safe deposit key, so the box would have to be drilled out The rest of the paperwork could wait as well.
I stopped by the deli and loaded up on lasagna, roasted chicken, and an assortment of salads, then threw in a couple of bottles of good wine, figuring Jannine might need that more than food. With the kids in mind, I made another stop at the bakery, and then headed for her place.
It was Nona Greely, Jannine’s mother, who opened the door. Her eyes widened instantly. “Kali O’Brien. Gracious me, is that really you?”
I assured her it was, though by then she was hugging me so hard I guessed she’d figured it out on her own. Nona is short and chunky, with an enormous bosom, so that hugging her is something like cuddling a favorite stuffed animal. When I went away to college, her hugs were one of the things I missed most.
“I read about Eddie in the paper this morning,” I told her. “I came to see if there’s anything I can do.”
Her face, which had lit with a smile when she recognized me, darkened again. “Such a terrible, terrible tragedy. How could something like this happen?”
She didn’t expect an answer, and I couldn’t have begun to give her one. Instead, we held on to each other for a moment longer, muted by visions of lives so suddenly, and unalterably, changed.
"How’s Jannine doing?” I asked finally.
“Better than I would be in her shoes. But you know Jannine, solid as they come.” Nona stood aside and gave me a weak smile. “Why don’t you come on in. She’s down at the station, but she ought to be back any minute.”
“The station?”
Nona ushered me into the kitchen where she was in process of making sandwiches. “The police wanted to get her statement. That's what they said anyway, although they talked to her long enough yesterday. I can’t imagine what more they need.”
“Probably an affidavit signed in triplicate on official stationary or some such thing,” I told her, setting my packages on the counter. “You know how bureaucracy works.”
I’d expected a flurry of neighbors and friends, but the house was oddly quiet. If it hadn’t been for the shrill whoops and screeches of the TV cartoon I’d heard on my way in, I’d have thought we were the only people there. “I brought some stuff for dinners. It was the only halfway helpful thing I could think to do. Shall I just stick it in the fridge?”
“Why, honey, how thoughtful. Yes, just stick it in there anywhere you can find room.”
A family refrigerator, I discovered, is not at all like a single woman’s. It was so chock-full of milk cartons and plastic-wrapped bits and pieces I couldn’t recognize that it was a struggle to find room for more. When I’d shifted and shoved enough to close the door, I stopped for a moment to admire the drawings which papered the front. Most of them were Lily’s. Big formless sweeps of purple and red crayon, her name printed at the bottom in Jan nine’s neat hand, along with the date. In the very center was one obviously drawn by an older child—a sketch of a man I took to be Eddie, standing in a field of flowers, the words, “I love you Daddy” scrawled across the top. I could feel the knot in my stomach twist up and grow tighter.
“How are the kids taking it?”
“Lily doesn’t understand, of course. I’m not sure Laurel does either, she’s only four. But the two older ones are pretty shaken.”
Nodding silently, I sank down into one of the yellow rail-back chairs. The years fell away, and I was suddenly back in Nona’s big, pleasantly old-fashioned kitchen where I’d spent so much time wrestling with my own loss. They’d been my lifeline then, she and Jannine. Sixteen years, and it seemed like only yesterday.
"How did it happen, exactly? The paper didn’t have much information.”
Nona had her back to me, spreading mayonnaise on slabs of bread. “I’m not sure I know much more myself. Jannine called me yesterday about five to say
Her words were cut short by the sudden, sharp slap of the back screen door. Jannine dropped her purse in the corner, and then, without saying a word, slumped wearily into the chair next to mine. She looked half-dead herself, worn and frayed around the edges like a cast-aside rag doll.
“Kali brought us some dinner,” Nona said, in an overly cheerful tone.
Jannine looked up at me and smiled, but only for a moment Then she rested her elbows on the table and stared woodenly off into space.
“How’d it go, honey?”
Jannine shrugged.
I reached over and covered her hands with my own. “I’m so sorry,” I told her. The words sounded hollow, but Jannine nodded numbly.
Then her eyes filled with tears, and her mouth began to tremble. She took short little breaths as though she were gasping for air. “It was awful,” she said, pressing her fists hard against her mouth. “Eddie’s dead and they don’t even care. They kept asking me all these dumb, picky questions, over and over. I’d answer, and they say it back to me like it was the stupidest thing they’d ever heard.” Her voice wavered and she swallowed hard. The tears spilled over and streamed down her cheeks. “It’s almost like they don’t believe me. Like they think I killed him.”
I gave her a quick, reassuring hug. “That’s just their way.” I’d dealt with enough cops to know that the brusque manner pretty much came with the uniform, but it didn’t always reflect what went on underneath. “They want to make sure they’ve got it all exactly right,” I told her. “Details are important.”
“Maybe,” Jannine said, but she didn’t look convinced.
“Do they have any leads yet?”
“Besides me, you mean?” She gave a brittle laugh and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I don’t know, they didn’t tell me much. ‘We’ll be in touch’ seemed to be about the extent of it. I’m sorry, Kali,
but I’ve got a splitting headache. I’ve got to go lie down.” She smiled once more, fleetingly. “Thanks for coming by, and for bringing food. It was real nice of you.”
“Go on and rest, I’ll stop by again tomorrow.”
Jannine pushed back her chair and stood unsteadily. “Are the kids okay?”
Nona nodded. “I’m making them lunch right now.” Jannine paused by the kitchen door as though she might say something more, but then turned and left without another word.
“Dear God in heaven,” Nona whispered, her voice hoarse and trembley. She stood motionless for a moment, staring at the empty doorway, then she took a deep, labored breath and resumed her sandwich-making. “Would you like some lunch?” she asked me over her shoulder. “Or a cup of coffee? It won’t take long to make a pot.”
I shook my head. “In fact, why don’t you let me finish with the lunches. I'll bet you could use some rest yourself.”
“Thanks, honey, but I need to keep busy.”
“At least let me help then.” I got out glasses and started to pour milk.
Nona turned abruptly and faced me. “You really want to help?”
“Of course.”
“Then see if you can find out what’s going on.”
I must have looked puzzled.
“With the police, I mean.”
It took a moment before I understood what she was asking. “You think they might actually believe Jannine killed Eddie?”
Her face closed up tight. It was a look I knew well. “You can’t be serious,” I said.
“I know them, Kali. Once they think they’ve found the killer, they won’t look any further.”
That was pretty much true everywhere, but I couldn’t believe the police, even in a backwoods town like Silver Creek, would be so slipshod as to ignore the facts. “They can’t arrest a person without grounds,” I told her.
Shadow of Doubt (A Kali O'Brien legal mystery) Page 2
