by June Shaw
“I had the windows cleaned not long ago. The screens don’t all hook.”
“That’s not safe.”
“I didn’t get around to having them fixed yet.”
“You’d better do that soon.”
“I will. You probably opened the window to get some fresh air and don’t remember doing it,” she said. “You’re getting older. Sometimes you might forget things.”
“Excuse me, I don’t forget. I didn’t open that window.”
“Right, Cealie.” She headed out the room.
“Really. I didn’t.”
She spun and faced me. “You win. You always win. You didn’t do it, okay?”
“I always win?”
“Cealie, I’m going to eat. You can go to your guy’s restaurant if you want. I’m staying here. I have leftovers.”
“He’s not my guy. And I don’t feel like going out anymore.”
“Fine, I’ll heat something for you.”
“Fine.”
She stamped off, the bat swinging loosely in one hand.
I stayed in my room. I shut and locked the window. I took my underwear out of my suitcase and refolded it, making slender stacks. Then I opened the top drawer of the chest of drawers to put my things inside.
The drawer was half full of magazines. Playful Girl, Check Out These Dudes, and other glossies showing almost-nude men.
“It’s hot. Come and eat if you want to,” Stevie yelled.
I slammed the drawer. Took breaths, waiting for my heartbeats to slow. Tentatively opened the second drawer.
Same as the first. I slammed it. Heard footsteps and turned.
Stevie stood in the doorway. “Are you coming?”
I nodded. “Uh-hunh.”
“You folded your clothes?”
I noticed I still held them. Rushed to my suitcase and threw it open. “I needed to get them all tidy again.”
“Did you want to put your things somewhere else? You don’t have to keep that suitcase on your bed.”
“No, I’m good. The bed’s good.” I set my new stacks back inside the suitcase.
“You could stay long enough to unpack your things,” she said with a hint of annoyance. She walked in front of me toward the kitchen.
“I think you ought to see a doctor,” I said. “You got short of breath.”
“I hear you huffing back there. So why don’t you see a doctor?”
What I needed was to not see so many almost-nude men. “I might.”
“Me, too.”
I didn’t mention the magazines because skimming through them felt like I’d been prying into her private business. Also, she might take them away, and I might want to skim through them—only to see how perverted she had become.
We ate pizza without conversation. I finished eating and helped wash the dishes without thinking about what I was doing until I was drying the last fork. I noticed the clean kitchen. Went over and gave Minnie a gentle pat on one of her small pink bumps. Her stem was straight, and all the puffs on her head appeared plump and healthy.
“I’m going to bed,” Stevie said. “Good night, Minnie!” she yelled to my plant with a smirk.
“Me, too. Good night,” I said to her and my friend, Minnie.
In my bedroom I rechecked beneath the bed and in the closet. I looked at the window, making sure I’d shut and locked it. Apprehension kept me awake. And the new severe pain in my shins. I massaged them. Somebody needed to discover what had killed Pierce Trottier.
And even after they did, would the ache ever go away?
I mourned for the man. My own problem was so slight compared to what happened to him. I’m okay, I told myself. Don’t worry about it.
My shins throbbed. I could barely stand the pain.
I grabbed a cookbook from my suitcase and read a few pages. The last recipe I read, Big Bill’s Chili, would have the person who prepared this dish shopping for thirteen ingredients and spending half the afternoon chopping them and stirring in the pot.
Exhausted from the thought, I snored.
* * *
Sunshine brightened my sheer curtains. It seemed a spotlight outside aimed at my window the second I opened my eyes. The day definitely had not just gotten started.
I stretched, drew the top sheet tighter to my neck, and slept again.
I woke later, satisfied that I could sleep as late as my body chose to now. My body was ready to get up. I padded to the window. Still locked. I gathered my clothes and looked for Stevie, then remembered it was Monday. She was at school. Another lovely thing about being in business with great people running my offices was that I often forgot what day of the week it was.
I didn’t forget I’d want to check into more of the people who knew Pierce Trottier. Ish remained high on my list of suspects as a killer, but I’d check others.
I couldn’t find the newspaper. I got the phone book, looked up funeral parlors in the area, and called. Pierce Trottier still wasn’t scheduled at any of them.
Deciding it was better that Stevie was in school all day and wouldn’t know I’d snoop into lives of others in her stop-smoking group, I showered and dressed in a silk shirt. I added comfortable cotton slacks and flats and then stared in the mirror. Uggh. The face looked rested with no red eyes. But that hair.
Totally red. Totally puffed. My brown eyes disappeared. So did my nose and lips.
I applied liquid makeup to cover pillow creases on my cheek and coated my lashes with mascara. Coral lipstick helped brighten my face. Still, red hair surrounded my head like a bonnet. I ran my fingers through my curls to loosen them, then patted my hair down. A little better. But I needed help.
Stevie had left me some freshly brewed coffee. “How nice,” I said to Minnie in the kitchen that smelled scrumptious. “And she baked pastry.”
I ate a muffin. Flaky, with a trace of blueberries and cream. I had it with coffee, first looking for the paper plates I’d bought. I didn’t find them. I washed my few dishes and tossed my napkin. In the trash I discovered an empty container. Stevie hadn’t made the pastries from scratch before going off to work. She’d bought a can and baked them. Ah, she was more my kind of woman.
“Miss Pudgy here,” I told Minnie as I waddled out of the kitchen. It felt that way, and if I didn’t leave Stevie’s house soon, that’s exactly how I would walk.
The ache struck my legs. They started to buckle. Pain radiated from my knees to my ankles. I needed to help solve Pierce Trottier’s death.
I wanted to check on the priest. Yesterday he was probably busy with masses. Today was he busy with those gorgeous women?
I didn’t know what church he was assigned to, but did know someone who might have that knowledge. I drove out to Beauty First, discouraged when I recalled that most hair salons seemed to close on Mondays.
To my delight, a car was out front. A sign said Open. I went inside, met by the pleasant scent of potpourri. The TV blared on the wall. Nobody visible.
“Hey, Audrey. Are you here?” I yelled.
She bustled through the beaded curtain. “Cealie. You’re back.”
“I thought you might’ve missed me.”
“I did. So what can I do for you? Doesn’t everyone love your hair?”
Possibly. They all stare at it. “People notice. I have one slight problem. Could you tone it down a little? And maybe not have it stick out so much?”
Her forehead creased, like she might be hurt about everyone not loving her creation. “Sit up here.”
I climbed into her chair. Tension in my shoulders told me maybe I shouldn’t. But I really hoped to get information.
She whipped a plastic drape open and wrapped it around my neck. Audrey peered down my hair, parting sections and murmuring. She mixed lotions in a container.
“One thing I’ve noticed in the last few months,” I said to her, “is that my eyelashes don’t show up as much as they used to, even when I put on mascara. My eyes aren’t large, so without the mascara showing, they almost disappear.
Especially when my hair is so large.”
She quit mixing her brew, mouth tight. “Large hair?”
I patted it down on top. “I have worn it this puffy.” Of course that was decades ago, when puffy was in. “Or instead of smaller hair, do you have any idea how to make my eyes look bigger?” I snickered, trying to make it sound like we were good friends, playing around.
She stared at my reflection. “Get younger.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your eyes look smaller because you don’t have as many eyelashes as you had when you were young. When you get older, they break.”
“Oh, crap. You mean that’s gone, too?”
“Yep.” She squeezed my head into a tight cap. Using a knitting needle, she tugged sprigs of red hair through tiny holes. Each time the needle reached down, I cringed.
I was exhausted from pain once she put the needle down. She painted a solution with stench onto patches of my hair poking out from the cap. “Now we wait a few minutes,” she said, “while the color sits.”
“Do you have an aspirin?”
“No. Why?”
“Never mind.” I resigned myself. The pain in my head would soon go away. I’d come here for information. “The other day I met a priest, Father Paul Edward. I wondered where his church is.”
“He’s pastor of Our Lady of Hope. He’s really nice.”
“And crippled,” I said, thinking maybe she’d say nope, he doesn’t have a physical problem. And then I’d know he was faking his dipping foot and need for a cane.
“Of course the man’s a cripple. Did you see him walk?”
“I did.”
“Okay then.” Her expression said you must be really stupid. It was an expression I often encountered and was learning not to mind.
“Is his church around here?”
“About ten miles west. It’s the most beautiful building you ever saw.”
“Does he ever keep any ladies around? You know, like hookers?” Ouch. I hadn’t meant to say that last part. But unwanted words too often slipped out of my mouth.
“Hookers? Father?” She shook her body like she experienced a giant shiver. “Girl, where do you get your ideas?”
“It’s a long story,” I said. He’d had all those women, four at one time.
Audrey slunk away through her curtain beads.
My thoughts couldn’t jell since the TV blared. Somebody in that soap opera was getting married but discovered her fiancé’s dad was also hers. And then a gunshot fired. A man yelled, asking why the killer did it. What killed Pierce Trottier? Why?
“Could you lower that TV volume?” I called.
Audrey came and pressed the remote. “Why are you rubbing your legs? Are they cold?”
I shook my head and let go of my legs. No use trying to explain. I hadn’t been aware that I was rubbing them, but they burned like fire. Phantom pain? I hoped so, and hoped it would leave me soon.
I wanted out of here. “I’m done enough. Rinse me please.”
“It’s up to you. But you won’t have much color change.”
She tugged the swim cap off, intensifying my headache. Audrey washed and towel dried my hair. She grabbed the blow dryer.
“Not that,” I said.
“What’s the problem?”
You blast my hair with that and make me look like I’m wearing a red exercise ball. “I need to go. I’ll let it air.”
“Okay. Did you want me to wax your mustache?”
“What!”
“Older women often get a few dark hairs above their lips.”
I hopped off her chair, paid her, and drove off, wet hair soothing my achy scalp. I needed to find the priest and his hooker friends. I hoped I wouldn’t grow a beard by the time I got there.
Chapter 13
Our Lady of Hope was easy to find. I followed my hairdresser’s directions and drove west. After a while, I hooked a left on Pine Drive. A few tiny wooden houses were scattered along the barren scene on the bumpy drive straight up. The road made a sharp turn to the left. It ended near a cluster of trees in a parking lot next to a church. One car beside it.
The church looked so natural it could have been another great log cabin, except for the large wooden cross on top. It was bigger than any cabins I’d seen but wasn’t huge. Windows on two visible sides took up most of the walls.
I pulled closer to the church and saw movement inside.
One person. No, two, three of them walking. I parked and got out. Then decided to be sneaky so I might see if Father Paul Edward was doing something in there that he shouldn’t. Of course I did lots of things I shouldn’t do, but my concern here was learning about a man who died and whether this man or his cohorts could have killed him. There was a time when I believed priests and teachers and adults of certain other professions would never harm a person. Then I discovered the naiveté of that thinking. People were capable of good. And the unthinkable.
I sneaked against a solid section of wall. Stepping to the first long window, I bent low and peeked inside.
A familiar-looking attractive woman stood near the glass. Smiling, she bent and waved at me.
I considered waddling away, staying as short as I was while she watched. And then I’d slip into my car and drive off. But that thought came because I was embarrassed.
I wanted information from this place, and I was old enough to stop being concerned about what others thought about me. That lesson was difficult to learn, but I was on my way toward mastery.
I straightened and walked to the church doors. One sucked open, and the spry cousins met me. Today’s slinky dresses were royal blue—bright and tight. Bling-bling dangled at their ears and into their cleavages.
“I saw you out there. I guess you were peeking in ’cause you thought it was locked and wanted to see this pretty place,” said the one who’d waved at me.
“Right.” I pinched my palm, especially not meaning to fib while I entered a church.
“I’m Lois, and that’s my cousin Sue,” she said, and Sue and I gave each other big smiles. “We met you at that restaurant. Isn’t the food there great?”
“At Cajun Delights? Yes, it’s terrific.” So is the owner.
“We just stopped by,” Sue said, “but we were leaving. So nice to see you again.”
I watched them teeter out on spiky shoes, wanting to ask why they stopped by, but couldn’t think of a nice way to ask it.
The door shut. I was alone. I looked over the church. A car started and left.
Striking hardwoods had been used to create this building, with nooks and crannies along the walls. I walked around the wooden floor, enjoying the saints or whoever stood in those recesses. Each one appeared to be in his or her home, at ease in that place.
The Virgin held a place of honor on a shelf. I smiled at her. A strange feeling came over me that she might be glad to see me. I wasn’t any religion, only from never getting attached to one of them. I did believe in the Almighty. Here was his mother.
Warmth spread inside me.
I wrenched my eyes away from her to look over everything. The altar in front seemed a special place, with beautiful carvings and candles and a crucifix. I lowered my head a moment and prayed. I prayed for discovering what was right with my life and my family. I prayed for the man who’d died at Stevie’s house and the people who loved him.
I took in the view from the wall of windows. Spectacular. Countless trees stretched beyond the glass. They ran down the hill and jutted into surrounding bluffs. Their varying shapes and shades of green kept my eye spanning them. I almost felt I was outside, immersed in the forest, touching their frilled and fine textures, smelling their new-leaf scent, until a voice made me jump.
“Can I help you?” the voice said, and I knew it wasn’t Jesus or his mom. The sound of a door opening registered, and then a thunk like a stick hitting wood. The priest.
Father Paul Edward shuffled into the church cavity using his walking cane. “Did you want to come to confession?” he ask
ed.
I could give you some real doozies, I thought, but decided not to mention them.
“Oh, is that what the other people who were here came for?” I asked.
He started a nod, then must have realized he was giving away some hush-hush churchy stuff. “Confidentiality,” he said with a slight wink.
A priest winked at me? He’d had those other women, four of them at Gil’s restaurant and two of those four now. Maybe he gathered women like some priests gathered little boys.
I gave myself a mental head slap. Many people, not only those of his profession, went after children, but priests made the news.
“No, thanks. I never do anything bad,” I said, pinching my skin. God might make this building crash down on me for telling such a fib. “I’d like to talk to you without the confessional.”
“Sure, let’s sit.” He leaned his pronged cane outside a pew and slid in.
I’d hoped he would come outside but decided not to suggest that since he might need to sit. I mentally confessed I’d had those thoughts about knocking his cane out from under him.
Purged of guilt, I slipped into the pew and sat near the priest. He did a closemouthed smile. I gave one back to him. “Father, I’m Cealie Gunther. We met at your stop-smoking session. I was with my cousin Stevie Midnight.”
“We also saw each other at Cajun Delights and the drugstore.”
I nodded. “How well do you know the people in your quitters’ group?”
He leaned forward. “If you want to know whether I’ve heard confessions from all of them, the answer is no.”
“I wouldn’t ask that.” Unless I thought you’d tell me. “But how about the women?”
He glanced toward the front door, where two attractive women had gone out moments ago.
“I don’t mean do you know them, like really know them,” I said. I actually wanted to discuss Ish with blow-up dolls but thought I’d get him off guard by talking about the women first. This conversation didn’t seem to head where I’d hoped.
He chuckled and rolled his round shoulders back. “There’s Fawn. I believe she’s doing quite well with the program. And Jenna. I’m not sure about her. And your cousin is having a rough time but making a go of it, right?”
