Grilling the Subject

by Daryl Wood Gerber

  “But she didn’t swoop.”

  “No, she held back. Ronald and I had a nice chat, and when I left, Ava was gone.”

  “Z.Z.” A large woman near the bleachers tapped her watch.

  The mayor jiggled her bag of barbecue. “I have to get going. I’m here with my sister. She can be a tad bossy.” She chuckled. “We’re scheduled to see another round of the pole-bending event. It’s incredible, you know. In the first race, a girl, no older than my sweet Janie would have been, tipped so much to one side I feared she and the horse might go down. Boom!” Janie would have been sixteen now. Z.Z. lost her at the age of two. If that wasn’t enough of a blow, a few months later, Z.Z.’s husband, overcome with grief, left town. Two months after that, he tragically dropped dead. How she managed to stay cheery amazed me. She thrust out the hand holding the barbecue bag. “But surprise! Lickety-split, she was back around the next pole. Fastest time so far.”

  “Z.Z., let’s go!”

  “Bye, Jenna dear!” The mayor scuttled away.

  Driving back to town, I dialed the precinct again. Cinnamon was not available. This time, I left a message for her saying I wanted to talk. I didn’t add that I had a list of suspects ticking through my brain. Where would I begin: with Shane, Ava, or D’Ann? And what should I tell her about David? Maybe my father, despite his promise, had clued her in about him already. In fact, maybe Cinnamon was at my cottage right now, grilling David and ready to send him packing.

  I sped home to check on David. Cinnamon wasn’t there. I tiptoed inside in case David was sleeping. He wasn’t. He was watching a cooking show on television; Tigger was nestled in his lap. I gawped at the two of them—the poster picture for serenity—and I wished with all my heart that I could turn back the clock. That David wouldn’t be a criminal. That he wouldn’t be dying. That we could put our lives back together and make a go of our marriage.

  But wishes weren’t horses. And there was Rhett to consider. I loved him. I was certain.

  I closed the door loudly. David spun around and smiled weakly at me. His eyes were red-rimmed as if he’d been crying.

  “Did you talk to your mother?” I asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Your sister?”

  “I couldn’t.”

  Maybe that was why he had been crying. I didn’t press. He released Tigger. The little rascal leaped over the back of the couch and darted to me, nose raised, sniffing. Could he smell my worry and David’s despair?

  David stood, shoved a tissue into the pocket of his chinos, and scratched his thighs roughly. He wasn’t allergic to cats. Was the itching a side effect of his illness? “I’m hungry. Want to get something to eat?”

  “I could make us something.”

  “You?”

  “I cook now.”

  “No kidding.”

  “I’m not a gourmet, but I’m adequate. Lots of things have changed.” I didn’t mean for the words to hurt him, but they hit their mark.

  He winced but recovered quickly. “Let’s go out anyway. I could use the fresh air. I heard it’s dance hall night at your café.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Your aunt came over to check on me. She said she was getting vibes from the house.”

  “Good vibes?”

  “She didn’t say.” He winked. “I didn’t press.”

  * * *

  The staff at The Nook Café had transformed the place since I left. The waitresses were dressed as cancan dancers with big skirts supported by petticoats. The waiters wore black trousers with pinstriped shirts and bow ties. Katie had rented a player piano; I remembered her asking if she could budget for it. Scott Joplin’s jazzy “Maple Leaf Rag” was cycling through.

  David and I sat at a table by the window. A waitress delivered a flight of craft root beers in short tasting mugs. Soon after, Katie sashayed to our table and introduced herself to David. In all the times that I had brought David to visit Crystal Cove, they had never met. That was my fault. Katie and I had lost touch until I officially moved back.

  In typical Katie great-gusto fashion, she personally shared her menu. Pride gleamed in her eyes as she ticked off items. “You don’t want to miss the cowboy steaks. Forty-two ounces of prime beef cooked to a deep pink and topped with blue cheese. Or try the beef-and-black-bean chili. It’s great, with just the right amount of kick, if I do say so myself. And for dessert, a Dr Pepper cake that will knock your socks off. I found the recipe in a cookbook called Grady Spears: The Texas Cowboy Kitchen. Moistest cake I’ve ever made.” She was also offering a taster menu, which is what we decided to go with. A little bit of everything.

  David’s appetite wasn’t what it used to be. He complained of nausea and nibbled a few bites. We talked about the weather, about the Giants, and about people he had known at Taylor & Squibb. He asked how the last campaign that I’d worked on before moving to town had gone. I admitted it hadn’t been fun. It was for Jump and Pump, an adult-sized pogo stick. The company had wanted a daring Don’t try this at home! commercial. We hired a dozen extreme-loving teenage boys and girls who agreed to jump through a fiery hoop on pogo sticks. Their bravado quickly waned when they realized how hard the task was. We ended up recasting with real stunt performers. The commercial never aired.

  Throughout dinner, David scratched his arms. Occasionally his head would twitch. After we ordered tea and dessert, David asked about my father. Dad had not checked in on David, as my aunt had, probably because she reported back to him and told him David wasn’t a threat. How could he be? He was so completely different than he used to be. His fight was gone. As intuitive as my aunt is, she would have picked up on that in an instant.

  “Dad’s doing okay,” I murmured, “last time I asked. Not incarcerated. Yet.”

  David removed the tea strainer from his teapot and set it on a side plate. “Tell me about all these dead bodies you keep stumbling over.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve made headlines, hon. I’ve read about you in the newspaper and on the Internet. You’re pretty good at figuring out who did what.”

  “Don’t believe everything you read.”

  “Did you really nail one suspect with a dinner plate?”

  My cheeks warmed.

  “All those games of Frisbee paid off,” he joked and reached for my hand.

  I moved it into my lap and glanced at the cell phone that I had left on the table. No text message from Rhett. No voice mail.

  “Expecting a call from that guy you’re seeing?” David tilted his head. “I saw you with him at the sing-along, and I heard you necking on the doorstep.”

  My cheeks warmed again. “Yes, I’d like him to . . . I’m sorry. It’s rude of me to keep looking, but he . . . we had a fight, and—”

  “What happened?”

  “He’s not happy with your reappearance.”

  David offered a tired smile. “I think only Detective Dyerson is.” He sipped his tea and murmured, “Call him.”

  “I tried.” I explained how Rhett and I had left things at the pole-bending event. Correction: how he had left things. By leaving.

  “Jerk.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “You don’t walk out when the conversation gets dicey.”

  “You did. Permanently.”

  David grumbled and dumped two lumps of sugar into his cup. He hated sugar in his tea.

  “Bailey’s boyfriend, Tito—” I hesitated. “You remember Bailey.”

  “How could I forget her? A spitfire.”

  “Tito said men need a cooling-off period.”

  “He’s right. Remember that book we read? We’d been married three years. What was the name of it?” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, right. Men Are from Mars; Women Are from Venus. By that therapist. He said you have to keep the rubber band taut between a man and a woman. Th
e woman has to give a man space.”

  He was referring to the passage where the therapist suggests that a man, typically, retreats into his cave. A woman, thinking she has done something wrong, sneaks into the cave. She wants to see if he’s all right and whether she can fix the situation. The therapist suggests that a relationship needs good, healthy tension, and that the woman, in order to maintain that positive tension, needs to stay outside the cave so the man will come back out. The message was pretty basic, but I got the point.

  “I’m not sure I can do that,” I said.

  “Sure you can. You’re a master of it!” David leaned forward and winked at me. “Trust me, I know. You’re doing it now, and I want you so badly I can taste it.”

  Chapter 17

  What could I say? At that moment, it was clear to me that I didn’t feel the same way. Yes, I cared for David, but I also pitied him, and I didn’t trust him, and I would never love him the way I had before. Ever.

  When we returned to the cottage, the tension between us was thick. I kept my distance, allowing him to clean up first and settle onto the couch. He complained of a headache and a stomachache. I asked if he wanted some medicine. He didn’t respond. Poor Tigger seemed torn between the two of us. Having found his calling as a therapy cat, he seemed concerned about David, as if staying by his side would keep David healthy. Ultimately, however, Tigger chose snuggling with me on my bed, and I felt an odd sense of satisfaction.

  The next morning, even though I had slept fitfully, I awoke energized and ready to attack the day. I skipped my morning exercise, put on a pink-striped shirt and white jeans, and checked on David. He was sleeping, his breathing shallow, his eyes puffy, as though he had wept during the night. Tigger leaped onto the couch and tucked into David. Quietly I tickled his chin and praised him for being such a good, sweet boy.

  Next, I cut up some fruit and left a bowl of it and a sliced bagel on the kitchen table for David with a note:

  Tea and honey are in the cupboard. Call me when you wake. ~J

  And then, before heading to the shop, I followed an impulse and drove to The Pier. Rhett hadn’t returned my call. He hadn’t texted me. When I arrived home last night, I didn’t feel it was appropriate to call and wake him. Now, I wanted to see him in person. To apologize. To let him know I had made my decision. I was going to start divorce proceedings. David would have to comply.

  Unfortunately, Rhett wasn’t at Bait and Switch. The sporty saleswoman said Rhett had called in late last night. He went out of town for the weekend.

  I left heartbroken. Had he gone away to decide how he felt about me, to find the words to end us, whatever us was? By choosing to allow David to stay under my roof, had I made it impossible for Rhett to reach out to me? I called his cell phone; the call went instantly to voice mail.

  In a funk, I slogged to Mum’s the Word Diner. I needed comfort food and a strong cup of coffee before I could face the rest of the day. Luckily for me, I had beaten the Saturday morning crowd. I slipped onto a stool at the counter, perused the menu, and selected a zesty western omelet packed with ham, cheese, and red pepper flakes.

  “’Morning, Jenna.” Ronald Gump was sitting two spots to my right, eating alone. A fedora sat on the seat beside him. His cane hung over the back of the stool.

  “I apologize, sir,” I said. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “I’m pretty invisible.”

  “I’m . . . sorry for your loss.” What else could I say?

  He nodded thanks. He didn’t look as pale as he had the last time I’d seen him—his skin was ruddier—yet he seemed dog-tired. He took a bite of what looked like a ham and egg sandwich. Some sort of orange-colored sauce dribbled down Ronald’s chin and onto his checkered shirt. He chuckled softly and muttered, “Slob.”

  “I think the Wild West week is making slobs of us all,” I said, giving him an excuse. “I can’t imagine how people kept clean back in the day, what with beans and gravy, and well . . .”

  My unconvincing argument elicited a tepid smile. Using a napkin, he blotted the stain, then pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. The move made me flash on his testimony. Could he have seen well enough with those bifocals to determine who was fleeing from the fire?

  “Sir, I apologize for asking, but you told the police you saw my father running—”

  “I did!”

  “Are you sure it was him? I mean, was it possible you saw someone else, maybe someone about the same size as my father? What if the culprit”—I didn’t want to be crude and say murderer—“was a woman? Maybe Ava Judge. Do you know what her alibi was? Or what about D’Ann Davis? She loves the color red. I’ll bet she owns a plaid jacket. Or how about Shane Maverick? Do you think there’s any reason he might have wanted to hurt Sylvia? I heard a barbecue sauce bottle top was found at the crime scene. Did Sylvia serve Shane’s steak sauce recently on the property?”

  Ronald leveled me with a cold stare. “Young lady”—he tossed his napkin on the counter—“I thought you wanted to chat, not investigate. Let me grieve in peace.”

  “Yes, of course. I only—”

  “Don’t say another word.” He threw a twenty-dollar bill on the counter, snatched his cane and hat, clipped a sunglasses cover on his bifocals, and hobbled out of the diner.

  I blew out an exasperated breath. What had I been thinking? How could I have been so heartless? That wasn’t me. But with my father in jeopardy and David back in my life—

  “Jenna?” Rosie sashayed up to me, her brown-toned skin gleaming with perspiration. A glazed purple flower adorned her uniform. Purple sequined hair clips glistened in her hair. “What happened?”

  “I scared off Dean Gump.”

  Rosie clucked her tongue. “Don’t worry, sugar. He’ll be back. He loves his barbecue, and he loves his onion rings, too. Ronald runs rings around Rosie.” She leaned forward, bracing her palms on the counter. “By the by, do you know what he revealed a few seconds ago? Not that I’m spreading rumors or anything.”

  “Of course not.” I leaned forward, eager to learn a secret.

  “His wife received a text that morning to meet on the bluff.”

  “From whom?”

  “It was anonymous, and get this, the text didn’t come through on Sylvia’s regular phone. It was on a what-do-you-call-it phone, the kind you can toss away.”

  “A burner?”

  “That’s it!” Rosie stabbed the counter. “Now why didn’t I see that mentioned in the newspaper?”

  “I’d bet the police would like to keep that quiet.” I put my finger to my lips.

  “Oh, of course. Shh.” She mimicked my warning. “Do you want my two cents? Ronald looks—”

  “Better. Stronger.”

  “Yes, of course, but that’s because of the makeup. He shouldn’t wear it, in my opinion. It makes him appear older, don’t you think?”

  “He’s wearing makeup?”

  “On his cheeks.” She tapped three fingers on hers. “Didn’t you notice? Rouge!”

  Aha! That was why Ronald had appeared ruddier to me.

  “I think he’s trying to fool the community that he’s on the mend,” Rosie went on, “but he can’t put one past me. No, sir. He’s exhausted. Look at him.” She fanned her hand and stared out the front window.

  I followed her gaze. Ronald hadn’t traveled very far from the diner after being upset with me. He was standing at the foot of the stairs, leaning on his cane, chatting with a lady in denim.

  “He’s lost without Sylvia,” Rosie continued, “and without her to inspire him, he’s feeling quite off. I heard he’s going to retire.”

  “I heard that, too.”

  “I hope to heaven it’s not true. My daughter is a student at the junior college, and she simply adores him. She says he’s always on his toes; he knows everyone’s business. Why, the other day when she ran into him
on campus, he knew her name right off the bat, and he knew her grade point average down to a decimal point.” Rosie spanked the counter. “Can you imagine a sharp man like that quitting? No, sir.”

  I glanced at him again, and something started to eat at me. The woman in denim batted her eyelashes. Ronald smiled. Was he flirting or was he faking interest? With the clip-on sunglasses, it was impossible to see if his eyes were smiling.

  A wild thought flew into my mind. Rosie said Ronald was lost without Sylvia, and the mayor had said something similar when we chatted at the pole-bending event, yet I recalled how horridly Sylvia had treated Ronald at the movie theater the other night. Had she pushed him too far? Did he kill his wife so he could move on?

  No, I cautioned myself. I was grasping at straws. I had so many suspects and no clue why Sylvia was killed. The why mattered. In order to clear my father, I had to figure out the killer’s motive.

  * * *

  My aunt had arranged for Fisherman’s Village to sponsor a special day for families during the Wild West Extravaganza week. True, independent contractors like the rope trick lady had held their events in the parking lot throughout the week, but Saturday was our special day. Aunt Vera had hired a group to bring in a petting zoo and a small train. Each was set up within a fenced perimeter. She had also hired valet parking attendants to shuttle attendees back and forth to a lot farther up Buena Vista Boulevard so no one would be inconvenienced.

  By the time I arrived at the shop, the fun was already in high gear.

  “This is the cleanest petting zoo I’ve ever seen,” I heard one mother exclaim.

  “Almost on par with Disneyland,” another said. “I swear, those animals don’t poop.”

  Inside the fenced area toddler children, with their hands stretched in front of them, cautiously approached groomed goats. No food was allowed. That was what made the goats, you know, poop.