by Allen Kent
“Don’t be cynical,” she said cynically. “It sounded to me like they’re open to any help we can give them.”
“Are you going to be back down, now that we have something new to work with? We’re pretty shorthanded until Newby’s back on his feet.” I wasn’t going to be the one to suggest a sleep-over.
She stood, gathered up our plates and bottles, and led me back into the house. While I moved the remaining slices onto a smaller dish and got two cold beers from the fridge, she picked up a photo of me with Adeena in front of the Al Fateh mosque in Manama.
“I’m still waiting for some reason to replace those pictures,” I teased.
She returned it quickly to the bar that separates the kitchen from the great room and smiled thinly. “I have periods when my resolve gets pretty weak,” she admitted. “Tonight’s been one of them. But I think you may have a whole new set of issues.”
I lifted one of the beers. She shook her head. “No more before I drive home.”
I gave a quick nod of resignation. “Then the resolve isn’t completely shattered. And what issues are we talking about?”
She leaned with her elbows on the bar. “As long as I’ve known you, Tate, you’ve been beating yourself up because you sent Adeena to interpret at that Baghdad hotel while you took the party at the Embassy. It was an understandable decision, but you can’t get rid of the guilt. Last night, you took on a whole other load.”
I put both bottles back in the fridge and propped against the stainless door, arms folded. “Okay, Dr. Freud. Lay it on me.”
“And as long as I’ve known you, one other thing has been obvious, too. Grace Torres has a serious thing for you, and you find her pretty interesting yourself. I’m not questioning your feelings for me, Tate. But I’ve always known I was competing for your affection with a woman who could have been cast as Wonder Woman—aside from maybe her bad choice of boyfriends.” She leaned farther onto the bar and tucked her folded hands under her chin.
“The only things that kept you two apart, as far as I’ve been able to tell, were your admirable commitment not to get involved with someone in your department, and her latching onto that worthless Sal. My guess is that she put up with the bum just to keep from having to think about how much she’d rather be with you.”
“You’re delusional,” I protested, knowing she was right about my admiration for Grace and now wondering about the Sal thing.
“Yeah. Me and Marti Bleasdale. She sees it as clearly as I do. I’ve seen it when I’m in the office.”
I stayed planted against the fridge. “You’re the one I’ve been trying to entice into a serious relationship.”
She tilted her head and gave me a knowing grin. “Like I said, you won’t let one develop with a person in the office. But now, that other excuse is gone. And though you did exactly what you had to do in that shooting situation, you’re going to feel guilty as hell. You know you’ve removed the one real obstacle to completely falling for Grace. It’s going to be a rough few months, Tate.”
I remained quiet as I muddled through what she had said. At least some of it was true. A first twinge of the guilt had come as I stood beside Grace while Chase loaded Sal’s body into his ambulance. Not guilt at having shot the sonofabitch, but guilt at knowing it was someone I’d always hated to see Grace with. It had grown as I’d left her with Marti that evening and thought how beautiful she was, even when mired in her own guilt and pain and relief. And I knew I was dreading going into the office for the first time after the shooting. Dreading having to face her after killing her steady, dreading receiving her thanks for freeing her of her tormentor, and dreading looking again at that exquisite face and knowing Grace was free. I pushed the thoughts aside. She wasn’t the one gazing at me across the wood slab of the bar.
In her own way, Mara Joseph was just as alluring. Pretty. Petite. Hardly statuesque, but trim, sleek, with bright, mesmerizing eyes that missed nothing. Joseph was intelligent, fun, self-assured, and much more familiar with the world beyond Crayton, Missouri than my chief deputy. She understood my passion for languages and was almost as fluent in Hebrew and Spanish as I was in Arabic. We could comfortably travel the world together and feel right at home in half of it. And she was a tender and passionate lover, something I had to admit I’d thought about with Grace, but never tried to pursue. I awkwardly struggled to put some of those thoughts into words.
“There are a bunch of things I find attractive about you, Mara, that Grace doesn’t have.” The words were as awkward as my thoughts, and she wasn’t convinced.
“Such as?”
“Well, I think we have many more interests in common. Travel. Language. Some of the things you love about city life that I’ve enjoyed.”
She looked about her with a wry smile. “Yet you’ve got this beautiful place you’ve said you wouldn’t want to leave. I’ve seen where you grew up out on Huckleberry Ridge, Tate. Your roots are pretty deep in this area. And you seem to forget that Grace speaks Spanish better than I ever will. As my wise father used to say, appreciating other places and things comes with exposure. Grace might appreciate them as much as I do if she had more experience with them.”
My irritation forced me away from the fridge to the end of the bar. “You sound like you’re trying to talk me out of caring for you. You’re the first woman since Adeena I’ve seriously wanted to spend time with. What I feel is real, and I’ve tried to let you know that as best I can.”
She stepped close enough to take my hand. “I know that, Tate. I also know you’re still struggling with how to move on from Adeena. I think you have these same real feelings for both me and Grace. Until you can get that sorted out, I’m not sure it’s fair for me to influence you in ways she can’t, especially now that she’s free of Sal. And it’s not smart of me to get more involved with you until you have this worked through.”
“How noble,” I said, more caustically than she deserved.
She ignored the snarkiness. “It has nothing to do with nobility,” she said evenly. “I’m just not that far past a relationship of my own that ended when he realized there was someone he loved more than he loved me. I’m not going there again.” She squeezed my hand, leaned forward and gave me a sisterly kiss on the cheek, then moved toward the chair that held her jacket and firearm. “I’ll check with the Major about helping you out down here if there’s more we can do on the Sayegh investigation.” At the door, she turned. “You’re a wonderful man, Tate. The best I know right now. See where your life is taking you, and maybe someday we’ll find we’re headed in the same direction.”
18
The old saying that there are two things you can count on, death and taxes, should be amended to include a third: Marti Bleasdale being in the office by 7:45 in the morning. That is, of course, unless the first item on the list gets in the way. Otherwise, Marti will pick up the phone when you call at 7:50.
“How’s Grace doing?” I asked, thinking I’d better be the concerned boss before offering my excuse for coming in late.
“I think she’s okay. Sal didn’t have family in the area and didn’t ever talk about any. She’s worried about some kind of service for him.”
I sniffed. “Just like Grace. The guy beat the crap out of her, and she’s worried about a funeral.”
“Tate, be a little sensitive. This is a tough time for her.” She paused while I kicked myself for being such a jerk, then said, “She’s here. Do you want to talk to her?”
I hadn’t counted on Grace also being in before 8:00 a.m.—or being in the office at all today. “Hmm . . . no,” I stammered. “I need to talk to her face-to-face when I see her next. And I called to let you know I have a commitment first thing this morning. I’ll probably make it by ten, but that’s not certain. I’ll call when I’m on the way in.”
“Do I need to know where you’re headed so I can send someone after you if you get in trouble?”
I couldn’t stifle a chuckle. “No. This is a pretty safe visit. Grace is still sup
posed to be on light duty, so save anything that might be too active until I get there, or give it to Ritter.”
I drove southwest into the national forest where shortleaf pines took the place of the cedars that mix with the hardwoods up around Crayton. The promise of a clear, cloudless day and bright sun couldn’t warm away the restlessness that had kept me slumped dumbly in front of the TV watching a late-night rerun of Roadhouse until 1:00 am. I then tossed and turned in bed until giving up at 4:00. I brewed coffee and sat out on the deck, wrapped in a blanket, begging for a glow in the east that would mean daybreak.
Part of Joseph’s attraction, I knew, was that she was available. And a big part of keeping Grace at bay was that she wasn’t. Or, at least hadn’t been. When I was honest about it, and I’d tried not to be, I had to admit that the “because we work together” was just an effort on my part to force another degree of separation. In fact, work was part of my attraction to Joseph. We both understood the business we were in. Adeena and I had worked together and, in some ways, it had helped us love each other more. We’d laugh at the times we’d changed a translation to keep from insulting some dignitary, or misused words that were different from one Arabic dialect to another. Working together hadn’t been all bad.
I couldn’t have a relationship with Grace and be her boss, of course. That wouldn’t be fair to the other deputies. I’d seen the messes created when problems developed between people at work and a supervisor had a close connection to one of them. And I could imagine situations in which that could happen in our department. Grace thought Ritter was a shooting accident waiting to happen. He called her a prima donna with a badge; not sure what that meant, but certain it was an insult. Someday I’d need to step into the middle of one of those spats. It wouldn’t be pretty—and much worse if Grace and I had something between us.
But I remembered a time when I’d thought Grace would make a great police chief for Crayton. Ken Prater was within a couple of years of retirement. Grace could keep an eye on things in town. I’d protect the county. As I’d snuggled under the blanket and sipped at warm coffee, waiting for dawn, I realized I’d entertained those fantasies more often than I liked to admit.
Fifty years of regular visitors had created a flattened dirt pull-off at the end of the path I was watching for. Even so, it wasn’t much of a path. More like a game trail that disappeared up the hillside into a dense mix of hickory, oak, sassafras, and hackberry. There were no cars waiting. A break for me. I wanted this to be a private reading.
I’ve never thought of myself as superstitious. But like most everyone I know, I walk around a ladder that’s leaning against the house, get a little nervous when a black cat crosses the road in front of me, and lengthen my stride on a sidewalk to avoid stepping on the cracks. My mother’s mother, Granny Durbin, was the superstitious one. To her, every sneeze signified something. One for a kiss. Two for a wish. Three for a letter. Four to get better. Something like that. I don’t remember exactly how her little rhyme went, but when I sneeze twice, I still can’t resist making a wish. Granny was as convinced as she was of the saving grace of the good Lord that if she saw a girl riding a mule, the unfortunate thing would never marry. Mother told me that when she was a girl, she wasn’t allowed near one of the beasts. When my father was killed in a logging accident, Granny stopped every clock in the house until after the burial and draped all the mirrors with white cloth to protect against another death during the next year. Not much of that had rubbed off on me, but I still make a point of leaving a house using the same door I entered through. No sense taking any chances.
That’s what was taking me to see the Webber sisters. As I hiked up the hill through the woods, I wondered how much longer the old women would be able to make this trek down to the road to meet Chase when he ran the ambulance out to take the pair to town? One day he’d arrive and they wouldn’t be waiting. He would make the climb himself and bring their bodies down. Both would be dead. There was general agreement around the county that one would never die without the other. That’s just how they did things.
On this particular morning with the sun playing in lacy patterns on the sides of the old clapboard house, I found the Webber sisters very much alive. They stood waiting on the porch as if one had stepped in front of a mirror: two aged faces painted by the same brush down to the slightest wrinkle. Both wore plain shifts, cut from the same flowered print. One tottered against a right-handed cane. The other gripped hers in her left. Even the gaps in their smiles showed an eerie kind of symmetry.
“Young Mr. Tate,” they greeted in unison. Then one, I wasn’t certain which, asked, “And how is your mother?”
I smiled awkwardly and told them she’d been gone for a few years now. It was actually five.
Their faces wilted in unison. “I’m so sorry,” the other said. “We don’t keep up well with everything. And time seems to pass so quickly. But please come in. I believe this isn’t an official visit. You have come for a reading.” I’d heard people say how unnervingly aware the sisters were, but this was my first taste of that omniscience. It sent a chill down my spine.
“Yes. If I’m not imposing. I’ve had some worries I hoped you might be able to help with.”
The images separated long enough for one to lead through the door, then paired again and walked me to a small, cloth-draped table tucked into one corner of a plain living room. I saw that Grace was right. Whoever had last painted the interior hadn’t bothered to move the sofa and two stuffed chairs pushed against the walls. The pale yellow paint traced around them, leaving a dark shadow of each piece on the wall behind it.
“Do you have a favorite tea?” one asked.
“Pardon my asking,” I said. “But I know one of you is Ethel and one Edith. Would you mind telling me who is who?”
They both tittered with what sounded like a very light whinny. The left-handed woman raised her free hand. “I’m Ethel,” she volunteered. “That’s Edith.” I made a mental note to remember that the L in Ethel meant “left.” I nodded. Now, if they’d just keep their canes in the same hands.
Tea? I had lived in tea-drinking cultures for much of the last ten years and had never really developed a taste for the drink. Either too bitter or sweetened to the point of being saccharine. “Pick something you think I’ll like,” I suggested, thinking it might provide another test of the women’s prescience.
Ethel and Edith grasped the sides of a straight-backed chair and drew it out together, nodding for me to sit. They divided for a moment and moved to their own sides of the table, looked questioningly at each other for a moment, then grinned and said in unison, “Formosan oolong.”
For the first time since I arrived, the two separated by more than a few feet: Edith to lower herself stiffly into a chair beside me and Ethel to the kitchen to heat a kettle and fetch the tea. Edith put a hand on mine as if we were old friends.
“That beautiful Mexican girl who works with you told us you were now sheriff,” she said kindly. I was tempted to let her know that Grace had been born here in the county, just as she had, but thought better of it. To Edith Webber, the comment was as innocent as having said, “That pretty Johnson girl . . .”
“Just over two years now,” I told her. “I should have been up to see you before now, just to make sure you were both alright. But I check in with Chase, who comes out to take you to town. And with Jerry at the market. They’d let me know if you needed anything.”
Edith squeezed my hand. “Nobody bothers us up here. We’ve got nothing worth being bothered over. Everyone who comes has questions. We do what we can to help.”
Ethel returned with a steaming cup, placed it in front of me, and sat across from her sister. The vapor had a mellow smoothness to it that told me I already liked it better than any I’d tried before.
“It’s still very hot,” Ethel warned. “When it’s cool enough, drink all but about a teaspoon-full. Then, holding the cup up by the handle in your left hand, silently ask what you would like to know.”
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I lifted the cup for a sip but could feel immediately that it would scald my tongue. Lowering it back to the table, I stalled.
“Formosan oolong. That doesn’t sound like a tea you would find at Family Market. Where do you get it?”
“San Francisco,” both said together.
I glanced about the room. No computer. And I’d been told the old pair didn’t have a cell phone. “San Francisco? How do you order it?”
Ethel answered. “We invite those who come often to bring their favorite teas. It ties the leaves more personally to the person. One of our regulars is very fond of this tea. She orders extra for us. We felt that you might find it to your liking.”
I thought about asking about Lilia Haddad’s visits, but Grace had already spoken to them about it, and I’d come for another reason. I shouldn’t interrupt the mood.
I tried the cup again. “Does it hurt anything if I blow on this?” I asked awkwardly.
The women laughed musically. “Not a bit. Take what time you need.”
I didn’t have a lot of time and knew that the longer I was away, the more questions I’d get when I reached the office. I sipped until my mouth adjusted to the temperature, then drank down to the last few drops. The tea had a creamy herbal flavor that soothed as it went down. I’d go online when I got back to the office and see if I could order some. Mental note. Formosan oolong.
“A very good choice,” I agreed, lifting the cup to eye level. I formulated the questions that had been haunting my sleep as best I could and concentrated on the porcelain cup, suddenly feeling very foolish. The serious look on the twin faces told me they saw nothing foolish about it at all.
“Now, carefully turn the cup over onto the saucer and leave it there for a moment to let all the liquid drain,” right-handed Edith instructed.
I eased the cup over onto the saucer and left it there with all three of us gazing at it expectantly. What had been a “What the hell do I have to lose?” when I’d made the trek up the hill had been changed, by the sister’s seeming awareness, to nervous expectation.
