Half a Mind (The Kate Teague Mysteries)

by Wendy Hornsby

  “Who go where?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged. He had made it through the inquest that morning without a single name gaffe because of the labels in front of each seat. With place cards, he hoped Thanksgiving dinner would be as easy.

  He was thinking about ordering I.D. jewelry for everyone for Christmas when Kate’s cousin, Reece, came in from the hallway with Rachel hurrying behind him. Barefoot, in cutoffs and a starched, monogrammed dress shirt, Reece was struggling with a heavy pail and an armload of bright gold chrysanthemums.

  “Kate told me the drones were around here somewhere.” Reece handed the flowers to Trinh and bent to set the pail on the Bokhara rug.

  “Don’t put that nasty thing down in here,” Rachel ordered, sweeping in behind him. She snatched the pail and glared at him as she backed through the kitchen swing door, bending under the weight of the pail. “I don’t know why everyone can’t leave a person to finish cleaning through before they start messing up again.”

  “I counted those oysters, Rachel.” Reece pointed an accusing finger at her. “And I know them all by name. I’ll know if any are missing.”

  “Don’t want no smelly oysters,” Rachel muttered as she disappeared through the door. “Like eating snot.”

  “Give them a beer,” Reece called. “And send one out for me.”

  “I get beer,” Trinh said, hurrying toward the door. “Rachel gets in refrigerator, I never get her out.”

  “Did Trinh just tell a joke?” Reece asked. He pulled out two chairs, sat on one, and put his bare feet on the other. Reece seemed to be in his element here, Tejeda thought, so comfortable, easy with the hired help. Not that Tejeda felt uncomfortable living in Kate’s house, but it was, he decided, comfortable like staying at a resort hotel.

  “Reece, you know my son, Richie,” Tejeda said. “This is his roommate, Lance.”

  “Rich has told me about you.” Lance thrust a hand toward Reece. “He said you have a sixty-seven Keyo Plastic Machine. Man, that’s a real collector’s item. An antique.”

  “It’s just a surfboard.” Reece looked up at Tejeda with a grimace that pulled his freckles together. “God, do I feel old.”

  “I’d love to try a Plastic.” Lance had the grace to seem chagrined. “Could we take your board out sometime this weekend?”

  “It’s too long for the waves on this beach,” Reece said. “Anyway, I don’t recommend going in the water here until Roger finds the rest of John Doe.”

  “He’s not in the water,” Tejeda said with the assurance that comes from experience. “Probably dumped in a canyon somewhere. I doubt we’ll ever find much more of him than coyote droppings.”

  “Oh, shit.” Lance shuddered.

  Trinh came back in with a pair of beer bottles on a tray, and two lemonades. “Sergeant Green called again. I say you say you not here.”

  “Thanks.” Tejeda could smell the sharp bitterness from the mums on her hands as she gave him a glass and a bottle of beer. He smelled chopped onions, too, as she bustled back toward the kitchen.

  Trinh had been a blur of activity all day, excited, he knew, about her first Thanksgiving and helping Kate to get ready. The entire house was abuzz with cleaning, deliveries, people in and out. The constant hum of Rachel’s vacuum, the heat in the room, and the pressure he felt coming from Eddie all seemed to bear down on him. He wanted to escape to the quiet upstairs, but he heard Kate’s voice out in the hallway and he needed to wait, to see her face and exorcise the stray and unwanted images of Cassie.

  He sat down next to Reece and took a sip of his beer, then pressed the cold bottle against the scar on his temple, as if this spot were the direct route to the source of the pain in his head.

  “I thought you were resting.” Kate appeared in the open door and gave him a worried glance. There were two men in the hallway behind her, both with their heads craned back awkwardly, apparently intent on the ceiling.

  Reece nudged Tejeda. “How many rings does this circus have?”

  “It’s endless.”

  The older man—the architect overseeing Carl’s house-restoration project and whose name Tejeda couldn’t dredge to the surface—rubbed his neck as if he had a cramp. “German?” he asked.

  “Scots or English,” she said. She glanced again at Tejeda, then turned to the architect. “Could you come back later?”

  The man sighed. “Not easily.”

  “Kate,” Tejeda said, “it’s okay. Come on in.”

  She hesitated before she led the two men into the dining room.

  The architect stretched for a closer look at the ten-foot ceiling. “They look German.”

  “Could be,” Reece chuckled. “But according to family legend, Kate’s grandfather shipped these moldings as cover for a boatload of bootleg Scotch.”

  “Could have been a German craftsman, though.” The second, younger man who had come in with Kate was making notes on the edge of the sketchpad he carried. Tejeda couldn’t place him, but he knew for sure that, with his well-brushed beard and shoulder-length hair, he couldn’t be the body-shaven Sean O’Shay Theresa would be bringing over for dessert tomorrow. The man dropped his head back and stared at the ceiling.

  Both Lance and Richie, like suckers to the old practical joke, looked up too. But Tejeda’s head hurt too much.

  The bearded one glanced down long enough to display his disinterest in everyone. Without asking if it was okay, he pulled out a chair, kicked off his worn Top-Siders, and climbed up to trace the whorls and leaves carved in the dark oak with his index finger.

  “These are the finest I’ve seen. Should be in a museum,” he said, looking accusingly at Tejeda. “Not as old as the Spanish choir panels in the study, but better workmanship.”

  “Roger,” Kate said, and then indicated the architect. “You remember Harry Miller. Harry, this is my cousin, Reece Sumner, Roger’s son, Richard, and his roommate, Lance.”

  “How’s it going?” Miller said, exchanging nods with them.

  Kate indicated the bearded one. “This is Harry’s construction foreman, Mike Rios.”

  Rios shrugged bare acknowledgment. Tejeda thought he worked awfully hard at his rudeness.

  “What do you think, Mike?” Harry Miller asked.

  “Take too long and cost too much to duplicate,” Mike Rios said. “But we could make a poly-resin form and cast them in plaster. With the right finish, the effect would be close enough.”

  Tejeda turned to Kate. “Are we building something?”

  “No. Harry asked to see our moldings,” she said. “Carl wants his restoration to be authentic.”

  “Doesn’t he have fancy moldings of his own?”

  “Ruined by termites,” she said. “Came from a colonial palace in Vera Cruz.”

  When Lance looked at her doubtfully, she smiled.

  “Rum shipment,” she said.

  “What a great place.” Lance nudged Richie. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Your history profs haven’t told you about Archibald Byrd?” Reece teased. “Kate’s grandfather put a Prohibition wrinkle in the old triangle trade: rum, real estate, senators. By the time of repeal, he owned almost as much coastline as William Randolph Hearst.”

  Kate smiled. “Salt of the earth, my grandpa.”

  “Salty, anyway,” Reece chuckled.

  Rios was examining the mitered edges where two strips of molding met at the corner. He shook his dark head in disapproval. “See, the pattern’s messed up here because this originally came from a much larger room.” He turned his pad sideways and continued sketching, every movement crisp.

  “They could have done a better job cutting it down,” he said, getting down from the chair. “I’ll make some adjustments in the molds, fix the pattern.”

  Miller seemed cheered. “It’s a go, then?”

  “I have to get some materials. Could start the molds tomorrow.” He glanced at Kate. “You home in the afternoon?”

 
Reece laughed aloud. “Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.”

  Tejeda saw a flush rise under Rios’ dark beard. But when he spoke, his voice was steady. “Friday morning, then?”

  “You’re presuming a lot,” Kate said evenly. “I agreed to let you take a look. But I don’t much want to be bothered by your workmen.”

  Rios challenged Miller. “Harry?”

  Harry Miller seemed embarrassed, the normally aloof professional caught in something that smacked of passion. He took a deep breath and rubbed his aching neck before he made eye contact with Kate. “It’s like a chain,” he said. “If one of the three houses in your compound isn’t up to standard, isn’t authentic, then the value of the other two will be diminished.”

  “Is Carl planning to sell?” Reece asked.

  Miller shook his head. “He hasn’t confided in me.”

  Kate had crossed the room, away from Miller and Rios, as if removing herself from any taint of alliance with Carl and his plans. Tejeda held out his hand for her and she came to him. She stood behind his chair and put her hands on his shoulders, gently at first, her grip tightening as she spoke.

  “You want authenticity?” she said. “Let me help you.”

  Both Miller and Rios seemed to relax, but her fingers held firm.

  “There are eighteen rooms in this house,” she said, “and twelve apiece in both of the others. The woodwork in every room, from floor to ceiling, is unique. Each represents camouflage for a different shipment of bootleg hooch made between 1920 and 1933. If you want authenticity, you’ll go to Europe and buy the castle of some impoverished count, or the mansion of a bankrupt captain of industry, and dismantle it.

  “Imitating this house might make Carl feel better, but it won’t make his house authentic.”

  Mike Rios seemed not to be listening as he made another visual circuit around the ceiling. “Too expensive to go abroad,” he said blandly. “Too time-consuming.”

  Reece threw his head back and laughed.

  “If you can’t make it to Europe, Mike,” Tejeda said, “would you settle for some photographs?”

  “Have to”—he shrugged—“if that’s the best you can do for me.”

  Miller seemed relieved that nothing had erupted after all. “Flash would wipe out too much detail. Natural light’s probably best in here in the morning.”

  Rios looked at Kate. “Friday morning about nine?”

  “Someone should be around.” She looked to Tejeda for confirmation. Then she said, “Eddie Green called. He said Arty Silver’s attorney will let you talk to him Friday morning.”

  The room seemed suddenly filled with silence, making Tejeda’s ears buzz ominously. Until he realized that Rachel had simply turned off the vacuum in the hall.

  Kate put cool fingers against his face and looked at him closely. “You don’t have to go with Eddie.”

  Mike Rios had his shoes back on. “Friday morning, then?”

  “Fine,” Kate said without taking her eyes from Tejeda. “Are you all right?” she asked him.

  “Little headache.” Tejeda smiled at her. He didn’t want her to worry. With Miller and Rios going, and the cleaning apparently finished, there was quiet again and the panicky feeling was fading. Not preseizure euphoria, just calm. “Think I’ll take a nap.”

  He tried to stand up, but there seemed to be nothing solid underfoot. When he grabbed for the table to break his fall, it slipped through his fingers like warm Jello-O. He could feel strong hands holding him, making him like a fixed point in a swirling miasma. He floated through darkness for what seemed like an age. Finally, when the room stopped spinning and he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the floor with Richie’s lap under his head.

  Kate knelt beside him. Her face was ashen but she smiled. “Want to finish your nap upstairs, or do you want to stay here for a while?”

  He looked down at his hands, crossed over his chest like a corpse. “Where’s my lily?”

  She laughed. “Lilies are for Easter.”

  9

  Kate eased up from the bed beside Tejeda, hoping not to disturb him. She couldn’t see his eyes under the cold towel over his forehead, but from the slow, regular way he was breathing, she thought he had finally gone to sleep. The medication she had given him made him dopey, but he fought it. For the last month he had been having trouble giving in to sleep, as if, she thought, he were afraid he would never wake up again.

  The antique bed frame creaked under her.

  “Maybe I should call Arty’s attorney,” he mumbled.

  She leaned over him. “Are you dreaming?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “Okay.” He moved only enough to peel the towel away. His eyes were closed. “Want to take a drive down the coast later?”

  “If you feel up to it.”

  “Yeah.” The word was hardly more than a deep sigh. She kissed his cheek and watched his face, but he was almost frighteningly still. Probably the medication, she thought. He rarely admitted to needing even an aspirin, but he had taken a precautionary dose of the antiseizure drug without complaint. If sleep scared him, what horror must he have for the convulsions that twice now had knocked him out? The doctor had tried to reassure him; they were only a transitory aftermath of the injury to his head. If he took it easy, watched for the warning signs, there would probably be no more. She listened to his slow breathing; she knew that for him, probably wasn’t assurance enough.

  Kate edged toward the side of the bed.

  “Richie has a girl.” His voice startled her.

  “He told me. Jena Rummel. I know her family.”

  “You do?” He opened his eyes a slit and looked at her suspiciously. “How?”

  “The usual. Yacht Club. Symphony Guild. Cancer Society. Her aunt and I were in school together.”

  “Does all that mean money?”

  “Lots of it.”

  He was quiet for a moment, apparently thinking this over. Then he stretched the towel back over his head and pressed it in place. “Tough break.”

  She laughed because it was better than crying. “Be amazed, what obstacles love can overcome.”

  “Maybe.” He seemed to be drifting off, losing his battle with sleep. “When you’re young.”

  She wasn’t sure whether he was aware of what he had said, but she still felt stung. When they had first gotten together, the rich-girl/poor-boy business had seemed only a minor hurdle, a sort of oddity for him to explore. Increasingly, as they skirted making a lasting commitment to each other, the issue of her money and his lack of it had escalated toward cold war. She had begun to think of his attitude as a form of bigotry she didn’t know how to fight. What, exactly, did he want? she wondered. For her to seek forgiveness for having inherited a pot of money? Or three pots, if she counted all of her benefactors so far.

  Sometimes she wished she had come from a more fertile family, for lots of blood relatives to divide the booty among. Then she thought about Carl, and his strange campaign to be recognized as of the blood. For a fleeting moment she considered giving up the fight and turning everything over to Carl. But it was only a fleeting moment; she didn’t mind a pitched battle, and in this one money was only a side issue.

  Tejeda didn’t stir this time as she slipped away from his side. She left her shoes beside the bed and walked softly in stocking feet toward the door. As she turned the knob, she stopped to look at him again.

  He was lying flat on his back, his long legs crossed at the ankles. He had started to snore softly, but still he reached one hand to the side and patted the indentation she had left on the quilt beside him.

  Dammit, she thought, watching his profile in the soft light, of all the battles she had fought during her lifetime, and there had been plenty, none had had stakes higher than this one.

  “Kate, what’s wrong with my dad?” Richie was waiting for her in the hall outside the bedroom door. Behind him, a shadow in the deep pile of the carpet defined the path he had b
een pacing. “He told me he was better.”

  “He is better.”

  “He passed out,” Richie pressed. “Dad passed right out.”

  “He stood up too fast and got dizzy.”

  “Tell me the truth, Kate. How is he?”

  “The real truth? The life-and-death truth?”

  “Please.”

  “Okay. But come away from the door.”

  From the look on Richie’s face as they walked down the hall, she knew he had prepared himself for major bad news. What could she tell him he didn’t already know? Since the injury, in spite of all the reassurance the doctors repeatedly gave them, both she and Richie had lived every moment with the fear that something in Tejeda’s patched-together head would burst and they would lose him. Whatever their fears, she knew that treating him as if he were an invalid was the worst thing they could do to him.

  Kate looked up into the face that twenty-some years ago could have been his father’s, they were so much alike. She took a deep breath and smiled. “The only thing wrong with your father is, he still thinks he’s Superman.”

  “Come on.”

  “Honest to God, Richie, he’s fine. Better than we ever expected. He’s supposed to take it easy, but you know your father; he’s into everything. Eddie Green has him involved with the Wally Morrow killing. Then there’s all the fuss about Thanksgiving.” The front doorbell chimed and she turned toward it, listening for Trinh’s quick footsteps to cross the foyer downstairs. “Do you think I should call everyone and cancel dinner tomorrow?”

  “He’d only fuss more,” Richie said. “Dad gets off on family and holidays.”

  The doorbell was chiming again. For years she hadn’t paid attention to the ridiculous song her grandfather had it play—the first bar of “Katy, K-K-K-Katy”—but now it seemed outrageously out of place, childish.

  “Have you seen Trinh?” she asked.

  “She went with Reece to pick up Theresa. Want me to get the door?”

  “I’ll go,” Kate said, annoyed at the interruption. “Your dad never sleeps very long. Why don’t you go sit with him? Talk to him when he wakes up. Maybe you can keep him quiet for a while longer.”