“It was not a date,” I said firmly. “I’m — uh, I’m married.” As if I needed to point out that basic information to my mother-in-law. “Des is just very kind — and very concerned. And wants to keep his county safe,” I finished in a rush.
“Uh-huh,” Clarice grunted. “And he makes Bananas Foster for just everybody.”
Loretta giggled. “She doth protest too much, me thinks.”
Clarice nodded knowingly in Loretta’s direction. “He’s smitten.”
It was my turn to snort. “Oh yeah. An abandoned woman with her very own FBI detail that is practically hyperventilating at the prospect that she’ll lead them to her fugitive criminal husband. She lives on a dilapidated poor farm and drives this old beast.” I smacked Lentil’s flank. “And is teetering on the tightrope between right and wrong in the hopes that—” I scrunched my eyes shut so the tears wouldn’t fall, “—that maybe someday her problems will go away, and she’ll no longer endanger the people she loves,” I finished in a whisper. “So incredibly romantic. What’s not to like?”
I opened my eyes to find Loretta and Clarice staring at me, stricken, pale-faced.
I gulped. “I didn’t mean it to sound like that.”
But Loretta slung her crate onto the pile and rushed me, wrapped her arms around my neck in a crushing hold. “That’s why I’m here, sweetie.”
Clarice cleared her throat. “Me too, actually.”
Loretta continued smothering me, and my gut twisted into a horrible knot. How many men had run out on her over the course of her difficult life? And I’d just accused her son of the same thing. How heartbreaking must it be for her to realize that Skip, the boy she’d raised, was just as fickle, just as unreliable, as all the other men she used alcohol to try to recover from? I cringed at the cruelty of my words.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into her frizzy hair.
“We’re tougher than that.” Loretta stepped back, but kept my shoulders pinned between her bony hands. And I caught a glimpse of steel in her eyes — the thin blade of both hope and terror, the taut wire that was holding her together. “Do you know the Serenity Prayer?”
I gave her a feeble grin. “It’s the telling the difference I have trouble with.”
Loretta trilled a delicate laugh. “Join the club. But all you get from sitting on the pity pot is a big ring around your butt.”
I thought Clarice was dying — the sudden, rasping, gakky sound she made. Even her neck and scalp under the short, spiky, silver hair flushed deep red. But she didn’t clutch at her chest. Although she did stab a finger up under her cat’s eye glasses and vigorously rubbed an eyelid while clearing her throat again.
It didn’t take long to finish moving the crates and drape the quilted blanket over them. I slipped the four paintings from behind the pickup’s seat and also tucked them under the blanket. This morning, I’d decided that rolling them up one more time wasn’t going to damage them any more than they already had been. I sure hoped mice didn’t find canvas appetizing.
Clarice and Loretta didn’t question why I placed a mechanic’s worthless artwork in the storage unit, and I didn’t enlighten them. They probably thought it was as good a place as any to keep them from being discovered by our curious boys with their burgeoning hormones.
We drove home in weary silence. I was grateful because I needed the space to think.
I was now the proud owner of about five million dollars’ worth of gold in bars so large I’d likely have to talk to the Federal Reserve about cashing them in. Way to be subtle. It made me wonder just what kind of family ties in the financial industry Garima Kuar Gulati, the young and enthusiastic manager of the Good Hope Home for Boys and Girls in Mumbai, had. She was great with the orphans, though.
Obviously, I needed to consult my lawyer. It was time to pack a care box full of yummy treats in the hope that I could tempt Tarquin Roe to eat something.
CHAPTER 7
Loretta was anxious to connect with an AA group. Her sponsor had made an introduction for her to a group that met weekdays at noon in the basement fellowship hall of the First Presbyterian Church in Woodland. Since I had errands to run, I offered to be her chauffeur.
Frankly, I wasn’t ready to trust her with a vehicle, since, as she’d pointed out yesterday, Woodland seemed to offer more opportunities for getting sloshed than for staying clean. It would be far too easy for her to become diverted if she was left to her own devices. But it also meant she was about to get a tour of the county’s backroads.
“So what town is this?” she asked brightly as I slowed at the intersection between Gus’s service station-slash-post office and the general store.
I frowned. “I’m not sure it has a name or that it’s even really a town.”
“But there’s a post office.”
I gunned Lentil through the intersection since there was no cross traffic. The four stop signs were really more of a suggestion than absolute law. Although I was certain Des Forbes, the ever vigilant sheriff, would have flashed his lights behind me if he’d been present and witnessed anything less than a full stop. He was a stickler for safety.
“I think it’s more like an outpost for general delivery,” I said. “Gus’s duties as postmaster are part-time at best. I’m not sure this section of May County even rates its own zip code. How’d you like the Harley ride with Gus?”
“’Bout froze my fanny off,” Loretta snickered. “Thrilling otherwise.”
I grinned. “He’s offered a ride to Clarice too, but she hasn’t taken him up on it yet. I’m not sure it’s a dignified enough form of transportation for her.”
“She should.” Loretta turned to me with mischievous eyes. “He — well, he takes up a lot of room, so you really have to hang on, cozy-like. It’s not about where you’re going — well, in my case it was, but you know what I mean — it’s about enjoying the journey. Clarice needs to lighten up — she’s all dictator and no frivolity.”
“The opposite of you?”
Loretta sighed. “Which is why you need both of us in your life. I’m not trying to take Clarice’s place. I wish she understood that. It’s just — well, I — I don’t have anyone else.” Loretta’s lips were pinched between her teeth, and she stared straight ahead out the windshield.
I stretched across the bench seat and poked her knee with my finger. “I’m glad you came.” Then I had to concentrate on the twisty road as it wound deeper into rain-drenched forest.
“Yeah?” Loretta’s voice held a shadow of hope.
I nodded. “At some point — soon — I’ll need to tap into your expertise on Skip’s mind, his way of thinking, to see if we can predict what he’s up to. I’m not sure if the FBI knows you’re here, and I’d like to keep you a secret for as long as I can because you know Skip better than anyone else. You’re my inside source.” I glanced at her, smiled at the eager expression that lit up her face. I didn’t want to burst her bubble, but she seemed determined to confront reality head-on with her new commitment to sobriety. “I thought I knew him too, but now I realize that he lost me at ‘I do’. He’s a complete mystery.”
A soft moan escaped Loretta’s lips. She clutched the edge of the seat, her knuckles turning white. “My darling boy,” she murmured. But then she squared her shoulders and drew a deep breath. “He’s on my list — step eight. I have to try to make amends — step nine. Whatever it takes.”
So we both had lists. I had a list of criminals I was trying to avoid or contribute to the incarceration of without doing damage to others. Loretta had of list of people she wanted to try to repair relationships with after the damage she’d already done to them. Maybe we could help each other.
I braked and turned onto a dirt track next to a stump with three blue reflectors nailed to it. “Hang on.” It’s impossible to have a soul-baring conversation while traversing most of the driveways in May County.
As usual, the clearing where Tarq’s cabin sat was quiet, a small oasis in the middle of a vast expanse of towerin
g evergreen trees. I parked behind his ancient Datsun pickup that was angled under the sagging carport.
Loretta and I slammed our doors closed and then paused. Sometimes the silence out here is overwhelming, even disconcerting.
Over Lentil’s steaming hood, I watched Loretta inhale deeply, her mouth slightly open, face pale, gaze drifting across the dew-sparkled meadow. Catharsis. How well I knew that feeling. I’d also been imbibing whenever I had a few moments to myself in the midst of dripping trees and their sweet, piney sap smell. It felt a lot like peace.
Slowly, I became aware of a sound that had nothing to do with small, skittering wildlife or recent precipitation — regular, rhythmic scraping.
I hoisted the box of individually frozen meals Clarice now prepared alongside every meal she made for Emmie and me and the extra cookies I’d layered on top. My frequent visits over the past couple weeks had given me the status of kitchen-door, no-need-to-knock social caller, so I led Loretta around to the back of the cabin.
But Tarq was at the rear edge of the clearing, stripped down to his tank-style t-shirt and baggy pants in the frigid air, his back to us. But he was wearing the striped hat I’d knit for him.
His movements matched the sounds — he stabbed a shovel into the frozen ground, hefted all his weight onto the foot rest, then lifted slowly and dumped the load to the side. His actions were slow, measured, and I could tell they were taking all of the little strength he had left.
I set the box on the back steps and strode through the knee-high grass, quickly soaking my jeans. Loretta tripped on my heels.
I laid a hand on Tarq’s shoulder, fuzzy with old-man hair, and he jerked.
“Nora.” Tarq shook his head and wiped sweat off his upper lip. “You’ll give me a heart attack and spare me the cancer.”
“How about neither.” I took the shovel from him and edged into position. “How big do you need the hole?”
Tarq gestured toward a lumpy old blanket lying a few feet away.
My eyes immediately filled with tears — because I recognized the blanket that had been folded in the corner of the kitchen for a dog bed. “Ollie?” I whispered.
“Didn’t wake up this morning. Had him for sixteen years. Thought for sure he’d outlive me.” Tarq cleared his throat — a harsh, phlegmy sound — and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Loretta knelt by the blanket and pulled back a loose edge, her hand trembling. I bent and stroked Ollie’s rough fur one last time.
Then I dug with a vengeance, tears streaming down my face.
Tarq and I wadded the blanket corners in our fists and lowered Ollie’s stiff body into the hole. Then Tarq carefully smoothed the blanket over his beloved Lab, and I gently shifted the dirt back into the grave.
“I’ll find a marker,” Tarq muttered, and he shuffled toward the encroaching trees.
I leaned on the shovel handle and sucked in a lungful of cold air, hungry for the peace I’d felt earlier. Fleeting — everything, especially life itself, was fleeting.
My face had a crusty, salty sheen. I polished my cheeks with my sleeves, but the dull grief remained.
Loretta was gone, as was the box I’d set on the cabin’s back steps. Birds twittered. Steam rose from the cabin roof as the night’s moisture evaporated into the warmth of the first sun rays that were high enough to stream over the treetops and into the clearing.
A hollow thud sounded behind me, and I spun around.
Tarq dropped a bundle of sticks onto the dirt mound next to a whitish rock the size of a bowling ball. “He always brought souvenir sticks home from our fishing trips.” Tarq brushed his hands together. “He never could pass up a good stick.”
I scooped up Tarq’s discarded flannel shirt and coat and slipped my free arm through his. “Let’s go inside.”
Loretta had coffee brewing, and she had done some tidying in Tarq’s jumbled kitchen. I don’t think he noticed, though. He slumped into a chair at the dining table, and I draped his shirt over his shoulders.
“You didn’t come to help me bury my dog.” Tarq slipped his arms into the sleeves and fumbled with the buttons.
I sat next to him, and Loretta placed full mugs in front of us.
“We brought food.” I glanced at Loretta, and she shook her head — just once, quickly — but I suspected what she meant. Tarq’s freezer was likely still full of the food I’d brought the last time, and the time before that.
And then I remembered my manners. “This is Loretta Sheldon, my mother-in-law.”
Tarq nodded toward her as she set a plate filled with Clarice’s coconut pecan bars in the center of the table. “Sorry I don’t have my company clothes on.”
She gave him a faint smile and slid into the chair opposite me. If she had a glib retort, she kept it to herself.
Tarq needed a distraction. It just so happened I had one for him. “You know the holding companies you set up for me?” I said. “One of them received a shipment over the weekend.”
“Ahh.” Tarq’s yellowed eyes fixed solidly on me for the first time today, and he nodded. His mind was as sharp as ever, regardless of how ravaged by disease the rest of his body was.
“In Good Delivery bars, eleven kilograms each.”
Tarq’s eyebrows slid together in a thoughtful line, but he grabbed a cookie.
“Do you know anyone—”
“I might,” Tarq mumbled around a mouthful. “But I’d need a few days.”
I slipped a key out of my pocket and slid it across the table to him. “Six Shooter Storage Solutions, unit 236. We’re renovating at the boys’ camp, so there’s not a lot of time. Fresh crop of boys arriving tomorrow.”
Tarq chewed slowly, a lone coconut flake clinging to his chin, and I could tell he was already mentally running through scenarios.
So I upped the ante. “There are a few other things in the storage unit. Couldn’t keep them on the poor farm. I’m heading into Woodland to check on a safe deposit box.” My crypto-generator wasn’t working at full speed, so I squinted at him too, hoping he’d get the message. I avoided looking at Loretta.
“A box?” Tarq’s voice edged up ever so slightly. “How long has it been rented?”
I nodded. He was on the right track. “Seven months.” Long before I’d ever set foot in May County.
“Clarice still making that beef stew of hers, the special recipe?” Tarq asked.
I grinned. “Tonight.”
I’d call Clarice and let her know. It was Tarq’s invitation to return when I’d had a crack at the safe deposit box, and so that we could talk freely without a worried relative of the suspect present. I also thought he might actually eat the requested beef stew if he had company.
oOo
Loretta waited a solid five minutes before she started bombarding me with questions about Tarq. And then she grilled me non-stop for the rest of the drive into Woodland.
Yes, Tarq was sick, terminal in fact. Yes, he had been an alcoholic, and yes, the disease that was killing him was liver cancer.
Loretta’s face became even more pinched at my confirmation of this terrible fact. “Once you’re a pickle, you can never be a cucumber again,” she murmured.
I cast a sharp glance her direction and wondered if her resolve to stay clean was getting wobbly. Maybe rubbing elbows with others in her condition wasn’t helpful. But wasn’t that what AA was all about? And I knew she’d been clinging to the hope of a meeting for the last couple days — it manifested as a sort of desperate casualness that had hovered at the periphery of all her conversations.
But she carried on with the questions.
Yes, Tarq was an excellent lawyer, and yes, I told him everything — no secrets. Loretta turned a little wistful at my answer, so I added that while I trusted him with my life, in doing so, I’d also risked his. Which explained why his living room — she’d taken a peek into the cabin’s front room — was shot to pieces. And the threat hadn’t ended with the arrests of Fat Al Canterino, Lee Gomes, and Neil Byrnes. I
f anything, it was about to become more intense.
“He’s going downhill fast, with little rallies when you give him a problem to solve?” Loretta’s tone turned her question into a statement.
I nodded. Fast was an understatement. Tarq’s coloring and overall physical weakness this morning had rattled me. And now that Ollie was gone — I almost couldn’t bear to imagine Tarq’s emotional state.
He had never mentioned the idea of assisted suicide, but I also knew that he only sporadically took his prescribed medications. He had enough of a stockpile of all kinds of pain killers and other things that he could probably give himself a fatal dose of a drug cocktail at any time.
My throat tightened. I had to keep Tarq busy, give him a reason to get up and around every day. Not that it would be hard, considering my situation. I hoped, when the end did come, that it would be peaceful and content, like Ollie’s.
When Loretta pushed open her door and slid out of the cab in the First Presbyterian Church parking lot, she was more somber than I’d ever seen her.
“I’ll be back at one o’clock,” I called.
But Loretta only waved — more like a twitch, really — and passed through the small cluster of people taking the last drags on their cigarettes outside the basement entrance to the fellowship hall.
oOo
Selma had been spot-on in her speculation about the nature of the key and the location of the safe deposit box. The teller I approached at First Pacific Bank didn’t bat an eye when I made my request and produced the key. She went to fetch the manager.
If appearance was any indicator, there was no way I’d be able to pull a fast one on Mr. Sykes. He was a bit of an oddity for Woodland — precisely parted and gelled black hair and compression wrinkles at the corners of his downturned mouth, dandruff sprinkling the shoulders of the navy suit jacket that was too broad for his shoulders.
In running Skip’s charitable foundation, I’d had lots of experience with the customer service staff of large, international banks. Without exception, I had well established, even amicable, relationships with them, no doubt greased by the long extension of digits in the accounts under my control. They’d always offered coffee or tea and ushered me into their interior, leather-clad offices — the ones with spectacular views of San Francisco Bay.
Hide & Find (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 3) Page 5
