"Actually," Gage said, "I want to stick with Ed Boone first, if you don't mind."
"Oh. Why—why do you want to know about him? I'm not sure I—"
"Did you hear he died?"
"Died? Oh, gosh, no. How? When?"
"I can't say more right now, but you'll read about it in the paper soon enough. I heard it from … one of my sources in town. I think they're trying to notify the family."
"Oh my."
"Otherwise I'd tell you the details. But I'm very interested in his life for my book. Seems like he could have been quite a person in his day, knew everybody, that sort of thing. And yet, when he died, nobody seemed to know he was even living here."
Judy raised her eyebrows. "He was living in Barnacle Bluffs?"
"That's what I mean. He just faded into obscurity."
"I have to be honest. Until you told me just now that he died, I thought he'd probably already passed on. But it's not like I thought about it, really. It's just one of things I kind of assumed. Will you excuse me for a sec?"
"Sure," Gage said.
She grabbed the coffee pot and filled the cups of everyone at the counter. She took an order from a man in a UPS uniform. The hubbub in the room rose again, drowning out the jukebox. When Judy returned, she touched her bob of hair, looking thoughtful.
"I really don't know much about Ed, I'm afraid," she said. "I've been racking my brains, but I … well, I heard he was real good to the staff. At least, according to Ronnie."
"Ronnie?"
"She was a waitress here when I started. I think she was Ed's first hire, so she'd been around quite a while."
"Where is she now?"
"I don't know. Might not be, you know, with us anymore. She filed for social security a few months after I started, and retired a few months after that. I guess she had some pension money, too, from when her husband was in the military. She was a sweet gal, Ronnie. Always something nice to say about everybody. Oh, you know, I just remembered—her son's still living around here, I think. He's an accountant or lawyer or something. Name's … oh, geez, just slipped my mind. It will come back to me in a minute. But he used to come here when he was in high school all the time and have milkshakes at the counter. He might know a thing or two about Ed."
"Do you remember Ronnie's last name, at least?"
"Meyer. Ronnie Meyer. Or Veronica, I guess, was her real name. And if you— Howie! That was her son's name. I knew it would come to me. Howard. Sweet kid. Very shy, but sweet. Always 'thank you, ma'am,' and 'please, sir, talked so soft you could barely hear him. Which was the opposite of Ronnie, let me tell you, always gabbing up a—"
"Did she tell you anything about Ed's family life?"
"What? Oh, no, he really didn't come up much. Or if he did, I don't remember. I just remember her saying what a good boss he was when somebody asked about how the diner started in the first place."
"So she didn't say anything about him possibly being … unfaithful?"
"Unfaithful! Heavens, no. I mean, if he was, Ronnie would never say such a thing. She was far too sweet to talk about things like that. She'd get cross if someone even said the word damn. Just a sweet, sweet soul. Why, did you hear Ed was unfaithful?"
Gage shrugged. "Just rumors. I want to be careful I don't make those rumors worse, you understand?"
"Oh sure, sure. I'm trying to think of someone else you could talk to, but she's the only one I knew who worked with him. The cook, the busboy—everybody else was almost as new as me. I could tell you a lot about some of the other owners, though. Like the Wellseys. Oh boy. What a crazy bunch of—"
"I do want to hear about the Wellseys, but I want to stick with this chapter on Ed Boone first. Makes it easier if I, you know, see one topic all the way through. Are you sure there's no one else you can think of who knew him?"
She winced, as if his rebuffing her comment about the Wellseys had shocked her, but she quickly turned thoughtful again. He liked that she recovered fast. It was a good quality for a waitress, getting over small slights in a hurry. It was a good quality for anyone, in fact. She brought a finger to her lips, her eyes turning distant, gazing over him at the crowded room. Gage saw that the ends of her fingers were chapped and bleached, full of tiny fissures and cracks from all her years of hard working.
"Hmm," she said, "I'll really have to think on that one. Maybe the mailman? Carl. He retired, too, but only a couple years ago. He told me he'd been working this route thirty-two years, so he must have known Ed at least a little. But other than that … Oh!"
"What's that?"
She pointed in the direction of the window. "You could always talk to those two."
He turned and saw that she was pointing at the two old-timers sitting in booths back to back, the ones he'd seen when entering the diner.
"Frank and Wilford," she said. "They've been coming here forever. Like, to hear them tell it, they were already sitting here when the diner was built up around them. I bet they have a thing or two to tell you about Ed. Frank's the one on the left, the one in the hat with the buttons on it. But be careful."
"Why's that?"
She smirked. "You'll see. I don't want to ruin the fun."
Gage thanked her for her help and told her that if she thought of anything else about Ed to let him know. She seemed disappointed that he didn't want immediate access to her treasure trove of Barnacle Bluffs history, and he again felt a little bad lying to her, but nothing good would come of it if Nora's presence in town was made known. He took a sip of his coffee and made his way as inconspicuously as he could to the two old guys sitting in adjoining booths, their backs to each other, looking about as approachable as wounded dogs.
"Hello, gentlemen," Gage said.
Neither of them acknowledged his presence. He thought it might be the loudness of the music, so he tried again. Still nothing. Frank took a sip of his coffee and gazed out the window. Wilford, most of his meal gone, pushed what was left of his hash browns around with his fork but didn't take a bite.
Something was going on between them. Gage could feel it. The hostility was thick, the anger simmering just beneath their deep scowls, and it wasn't just toward him. They were quite the pair. At a glance, Gage had thought them so similar in appearance they could have been twins, but up close they were more different than alike. They were both wrinkled, jowly men with weathered faces, but Frank was stocky and slouched, both his sun-faded blue hat and his fishing vest adorned with buttons. Gage saw a Reagan button and a Dukakis button. He saw Mickey Mouse and Superman. He saw buttons for the Oregon State Fair, St. Patrick's Day, and the American Heart Association. His face had a lumpy, uneven quality, as if it had melted for a while in the hot sun and dried in cool weather. Uneven tufts of white hair sprouted from various places on his chin and cheeks, particularly thick on the mole on his sagging neck.
Wilford, on the other hand, sat ramrod straight in his seat, with the kind of still dignity of a Buddhist monk. His face, though also deeply wrinkled, was more precise and symmetrical in its lines and angles, like a sculpture by Rodin. His silver hair, what was left of it, was neatly parted and slicked with enough hairspray to hold it down in hurricane-force winds. He wore a similar army-green fisherman's vest, but so bright and clean it could have been bought off the rack that morning.
"Are you talking to me?" Wilford asked suddenly. "Or are you directing your words toward somebody else in this vicinity?"
Frank snorted.
"Well," Gage said, "I guess I was hoping to talk to both of you."
Wilford replied with a quick shake of his head. Frank rolled his eyes and took another sip of his coffee.
"What?" Gage said.
"I don't know who else you're talking about," Wilford said, "but if you're addressing me, I'm afraid I have to decline your invitation. I'm just finishing up momentarily, then I have an appointment to keep."
Frank snorted again. Wilford's nose and cheeks reddened slightly, and when he spoke, his voice was even more clipped.
> "Though it may be hard to believe," he said, "some people actually have lives. I have a routine teeth cleaning with the dentist, if you really must know. So whatever insurance you're selling, good man, I'm not in the market at this time. Perhaps there are more gullible participants for your wares somewhere nearby."
Though he glanced at Gage when he spoke, as if talking to him, it was obvious that most of his remarks were meant for Frank. His button-adorned companion sighed again, then looked up at Gage, squinting with his right eye. His left was a milky white color, the iris tanner than the solid chocolate brown of the other one.
"You're that detective fella," Frank said.
"That's right," Gage said.
"Figured. Some folks around these parts may not be very observant, but I do try to pay attention."
Wilford gave a quick, curt shake of his head. Frank didn't look at him, but even with his back turned he seemed to know that Wilford had reacted because his scowl deepened.
"You know," Frank said, still looking at Gage, "just because a man's busy don't mean he's really, you know, busy. He can be doing a lot of somethings that all add up to a lot of nothings."
"There's wisdom there," Gage said. "You have just a minute? I want to see what you know about Ed Boone."
This piqued their interest, but Wilford, other than sitting a bit straighter in his booth, tried not to show it. Frank raised his unruly white eyebrows.
"The guy who started this joint?" he said.
"So you know him?"
"Sure I know him. Like I said, I pay attention."
Wilford shook his head again, this time vigorously enough that Frank probably felt the vibration through the booth. He shook his head in return. Judy, smiling a bit too smugly for Gage's taste, brought his meal to him and asked where he was going to sit.
"Not here," Wilford said.
Gage looked at Frank, who, after a moment's hesitation, finally shrugged. Judy deposited the plate and Gage slid into the other side of the booth with his cane, now with a clear view of Frank's bedraggled face and the back of Wilford's rigid neck, the redness deepening by the second. Steam rose from the hash browns, the smell of cooked potatoes buttery and rich. Judy brought his coffee. Gage ate for a moment in silence, trying to let their curiosity grow. The ham was a bit dry, and the scrambled eggs were on the runny side, but since the whole thing cost not much more than a latte at Starbucks, he couldn't complain.
"Well?" Frank said. "What happened with Ed? There been some kind of wrongdoing or something? I figure there must be, you involved."
"Nope," Gage said, "I'm just writing a book."
This got both of their attention. Frank, reaching for his coffee, paused. Wilford, though he didn't turn, sat straighter in his seat.
"A book?" Frank said. "What kind of book?"
Gage told them what he'd told Judy. By the end, Wilford was half turned toward him. When Frank started to talk about the early pioneers who settled in Barnacle Bluffs, Gage interjected by saying he specifically wanted to know about Ed Boone right now, because he was new at this whole book-writing thing and taking it one chapter at a time so as not to get confused. And it wasn't going to be a definitive history, more just historical anecdotes.
"Sounds like bathroom reading," Frank said.
"What's wrong with bathroom reading?" Gage said. "People need something to read in the bathroom, don't they?"
Wilford, with a great show of haughtiness, said, "Well, if someone was asking me—"
"No one's asking you," Frank said.
"If someone was asking me," Wilford continued, louder, "I would say I think it's an excellent idea."
"Well, you would."
"Excuse me? What's that supposed to mean?"
Frank, looking at Gage and not Wilford, shrugged.
"Go ahead, then," Wilford said. "Whatever insult you've saved up this time, spit it out."
"Oh, I thought you weren't talking to me?"
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm not the one who severed our friendship."
Frank laughed. "Severed. God, only you talk like that. It's like you think you're on Downton Abbey. And I didn't sever anything."
"We had an arrangement—"
"There you go again. Arrangement. What are you, Jane Austen?"
"We had an arrangement," Wilford pushed on, his face now nearly as red as the ketchup bottle, "one we both agreed on, and you—you changed things without discussing it with me first."
Frank held up his index finger. "One time," he said, still directing his comments at Gage even though Gage was merely a bystander to whatever petty feud this was. "One time, I had breakfast with someone else, and it's like it's the end of the world."
"It's the principle of the thing," Wilford said.
"Oh, it's not about that, and you know it. It's about who I had breakfast with."
"I have no idea what you are talking about."
Frank shook his head. "What do they say about denial and a river in Egypt? For God's sake, she doesn't even live here anymore."
"I done with this," Wilford said, spinning back around in his seat. "I'm absolutely done. There's no sense in treading this ground again. Good day, sir. It was the principle of the thing. It's all about the principle. Good day."
"Yeah," Frank said, "the principle of her liking me and not you. That's what you can't get over."
"I can't even stand to look at you."
"Fine. Why don't you eat somewhere else, then? You've always had that option."
"I will not change my routine," Wilford said. "I'm not the one who changed things. You should eat somewhere else."
"Fat chance," Frank said. "I like this joint too much to leave because of your stupidness."
"Stupidness!"
"If the shoe fits."
"Stupidness is not— It's not even a word. It's stupidity, if you have to be so crude as to use such a word."
"I guess I'm just too dumb to talk to you. Maybe you shouldn't even bother. I liked it better when you were giving me the silent treatment."
Wilford said nothing, but in his rigid stillness he emanated all the impending doom of a ticking time bomb. Frank, who'd appeared smug and irritated when this dust-up started, now stared despondently into his coffee. Here, finally, they'd come to the source of their strained relationship, and Gage wasn't at all surprised it was about a woman. He would have liked to sidestep the whole thing entirely, but he didn't see how he was going to get any information out of them when they were more concerned about their feud than about helping him.
"How long has it been?" he asked.
They both looked at him.
"Since this, uh, woman— What's her name?"
"Vicky," Frank said.
"How long has she been gone?"
"A little over two years," Frank said.
"Twenty-seven months, to be precise," Wilford said.
Frank rolled his eyes and seemed prepared to say something, but Gage held up his hand.
"And all this time you two have been sitting at separate tables?" he asked.
Neither of them answered, which Gage took to be a yes. They both appeared to be hunkering down, preparing for mortar fire, and Gage knew little good would come from tackling their hurt feelings head-on. He had another idea in mind.
"Which means," he said, "that you've been wasting this diner's money for twenty-seven months."
Frank looked up sharply. Wilford spun around in his seat. Now it was time for Gage to press his advantage.
"Does this place look like a soup kitchen?" he asked.
"Excuse me?" Wilford said.
"It is a for-profit business, right?" When they both started to sputter an answer, Gage forged ahead. "I eat here too, guys. You know how often I come here and don't find a table? It gets busy. Sometimes I'll eat at the counter, but other times I just go somewhere else. I'm sure I'm not alone. If you're taking two tables when you could take one, you're hurting this business. Is that what you want to do? Hurt their bottom line?"
Embarrassed,
chagrinned, they mumbled "no."
"It's hard enough for a restaurant to make it into this town with everything going right," Gage said. "They certainly don't need to be wasting a booth because two guys old enough to know better are acting like jealous high schoolers. I don't know who this Vicky was, but she's gone now. You can get over this thing or not, I don't care, but if you're going to eat in this restaurant, you better get back to eating in one booth or you should both find other places to take your sorry asses. Because I don't want to see this place go under because you're acting childish."
While they were still recovering from his withering assault, Gage got out of his seat. He pointed at Wilford, then at his booth. Head bowed like a scolded toddler, Wilford slid out of his seat and sat across from Frank. Neither of them would meet each other's eyes. Gage went back to eating his breakfast, not saying a word. He was aware of people in the room watching them, but paid them no mind. The jukebox was between songs, which made the silence in the room all the more noticeable, every clink and clatter of dishes jarring.
Gage went on working on his breakfast, studiously ignoring the attention, until finally Sonny and Cher were singing on the jukebox, the conversation began to rise again, and the room was back to what it was before Gage's outburst. By then, Frank and Wilford were fidgeting in their seats, which was exactly what Gage wanted.
"Now," Gage said, "as I was saying before, anything you can tell me about Ed Boone would be much appreciated."
"Well—" Wilford began.
"If I recall—" Frank said at the same time.
"Oh," Wilford said. "I'm sorry. You go ahead."
"No, no," Frank said, "you go first. I'm sorry for interrupting"
"It's no problem. You weren't interrupting. You really are the one who should—"
"Guys," Gage said, "your newfound politeness is really quite endearing, but one of you has to speak first. Frank, tell me what you know and Wilford will chime in."
Frank shrugged. "All right. I really didn't know him that well. I don't think Willy did either." He glanced at Wilford, who nodded, before continuing. "He kind of kept to himself. A loner, you know. We started coming here, what, about a year after he opened?"
Wilford nodded. "After the Pancake House burned down."
A Lighthouse for the Lonely Heart: An Oregon Coast Mystery (Garrison Gage Series Book 5) Page 6
