Kansas Troubles

by Earlene Fowler

  The sixty-five-mile drive back to Wichita seemed to take an eternity. Every time headlights came toward me on the lonely country road, my body tensed in apprehension until the red tail lights disappeared into the ink-colored night. Every vehicle appeared sinister, and more than once I regretted not sending Cordie June for Gabe. But I would have had to face his anger—at the person who attacked me and at me for putting myself in a vulnerable position. Tired down to my toes, I wanted to delay that confrontation as long as possible. I pushed the car to eighty miles an hour, wanting to go faster but afraid to with my reflexes as shaky as they were. I gripped the steering wheel when a spasm of shuddering overcame me and forced me to slow down to sixty-five. On the radio, sad country songs crackled through the black prairie night. A farm report came on—“Sows holding steady. Eighty-five dollars top price paid for some steers in Sioux City.” I concentrated on the prices, trying to forget what had just happened to me and what could have happened.

  Within a half hour, the aspirin finally started taking effect, and my pain began subsiding. Unable to help myself, I compulsively replayed the accident over in my mind. Though it was possible that the driver was just a drunk weaving down the road, I knew it was more likely he deliberately swerved to hit me and that it probably was connected with Tyler’s murder. Was it a coincidence that Cordie June happened to be in front of the Civic Theater next to the Camaro just as the lady in the small white car dropped me off? And her veiled warnings were something I knew I should tell Gabe or Dewey or someone. She said she didn’t kill Tyler, and though I thought she was a self-centered opportunist, something inside me believed her.

  Once I hit Highway 54, the road into Wichita, the muscles in my arms slowly started to unknot. Small stores that were still open and lit-up houses became more frequent as I neared the city limits. I lowered my speed and drove carefully through the outskirts of Wichita and into Derby. Tears started down my face when I pulled into Kathryn’s driveway, and the sobs that had narrowed my throat all the way home started bubbling out of me in choking, convulsive weeping. I fumbled with the house key Gabe had attached to the rental car key chain and finally unlocked the door.

  I dropped my purse and limped up the stairs, tearing off my shirt. All I wanted was a hot shower and to crawl into bed. Halfway up the stairs, I turned and lurched back down to the front door and locked it. I wanted a hot shower, but I’d also seen the movie Psycho.

  I stood under the hot stream for a long time, washing away the dirt, blood, and tears. My crying slowed to an occasional soft hiccup. The hot water soothed my aching muscles, but my upper left thigh and hip, where the truck’s fender had struck full force, felt like it had been burned with a hot brand. The whole left side of me was already a mass of pale blue and purple bruises that would no doubt darken to an angry plum color by morning. I tried to think—Would ice help? Did I want to try making it up and down those stairs again? I pulled on a clean T-shirt, then took two more aspirin, dipping my head and drinking from the bathroom faucet. My stomach started burning seconds later, and I knew I’d have to go downstairs and get some milk. I was at the top of the stairs, contemplating the distance with despair, when I heard the front door fly open and Gabe’s deep voice bellow my name. I hesitated, torn between stumbling down the stairs and throwing myself in his arms or staggering back to the bathroom and locking the door. My mind, still partly in shock, decided for me by freezing every muscle in my body.

  He yelled my name again.

  “Up here,” I called back, my voice faltering.

  He appeared at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes looking as if someone had lit a bright blue fire behind them. His breath came in short, hard gasps as he took the stairs two at a time.

  “Cordie June said you fell,” he said, tilting his head to inspect my face. “Are you okay? Why didn’t you come get me?”

  “How did you get in?” I twisted my head, avoiding his determined gaze. “How did you get back?”

  “Mom keeps a key hidden.” He turned my chin toward him, sucking his breath in sharply when he saw my face. “And I borrowed Dewey’s truck. You’re going to the hospital.”

  “No!” I pulled away from him. “I just want to lie down.” I went into the bedroom and crawled into bed. As I did, my T-shirt rode up, and he spotted the bruises on my legs and thigh.

  “Benni, what happened? How did you get these?” He sat on the bed and pushed my T-shirt higher, exposing all the bruises up to my underarm. He ran his fingers gently over them.

  “Stop it,” I said, tugging down my shirt. “Leave me alone.” Swallowing a sob, I turned away from him and pulled the edge of the thin chenille bedspread over me, trying to hide my shaking.

  He tugged the bedspread off me and gathered me in his arms, whispering softly against the top of my head, “Esta bien, querida. Todo va ha estar bien. No dejare que nadien te aga dano. It’s okay, I won’t let anyone hurt you. Esta bien, it’s okay, esta bien.” He rocked me back and forth, murmuring in a mixture of English and Spanish until my trembling slowly subsided. His voice was so soothing and I felt so safe that I didn’t want him to ever stop. But eventually he did, and, when he did, he had questions. Loving husband with a touch of Sergeant Friday.

  “Tell me how this happened,” he said, his voice firm, though his hand still stroked my hair.

  “I need some milk,” I said. “I took six aspirin. My stomach hurts.”

  He started to say something, then stopped. He went downstairs, brought me back a glass of warm milk, and silently watched me drink it. The air between us was thick and sultry with tension. When I finished, he sat the glass on the nightstand and said, “Now, talk.”

  My voice still raspy from crying, I told him everything, from my heated conversation with Rob to my encounter with the truck to Cordie June’s veiled warning. “That’s all,” I concluded with a shuddering breath and watched his grave face, waiting for him to get mad, start lecturing me, something.

  He stared blankly at the wall behind me, his face somber, his thoughts and feelings a secret. Was his reticence partly my fault? I couldn’t help but wonder, thinking back to all the times I’d withheld the truth from him, not lying exactly, but not trusting him either. Why didn’t I go straight to him when I was attacked tonight? Had he been Jack, I would have. I knew it and I suspected he did, too. It was like a tug of war between us—neither one of us willing to let go, be the first to be completely vulnerable, completely trusting. I wanted to ask what he was thinking, but instead closed my eyes and rested my head against the headboard.

  “Did you hit your head?” he finally asked. “I think we should get you checked out.”

  “No. I don’t have a concussion and I’m sure nothing’s broken. The truck just sort of pushed me. I rolled when I hit, and the ground was padded with weeds.” I brought my knees up to my chest. “Please, Gabe, I don’t want to go to the hospital. I just want to stay here with you.”

  “Okay,” he said. “It’s against my better judgment, but—” His face grew hard. Apprehension seized my heart. The attack on me put things on a whole other level for him now.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked uneasily.

  “Shhh.” He gently brushed his lips across my forehead. “Not tonight. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Right now, you need to sleep. Are you hungry? Do you want me to fix you something to eat?”

  “No. I’m tired. I do want to sleep.” I could barely get the words out. His tenderness was almost harder to take than anger because it was so unexpected. Downstairs, the phone rang.

  “It’s probably Becky,” he said. “She was worried when she heard you fell. I’ll set her mind at ease and then come to bed after I take a shower.”

  Feeling absolutely safe now, I fell asleep immediately and never heard him get into bed. But during the night, something woke me, the faint touch of lips on my neck, a warm breath in my ear.

  “Querida,” he whispered, his hands under my shirt, avoiding my bruises, softly caressing me in places he knew I coul
dn’t resist. “I want to make love to you.” Emotion roughened his voice. Though I couldn’t see them in the dark I knew the exact shade of his eyes—a dark, cloudy blue. “You can say no . . . if it hurts . . .”

  “Yes.” My answer came out as a sigh, and in my mind I tasted him already. I traced his jawline, rough as sandpaper under my fingertips.

  So, in his childhood room we made slow, gentle love. As I held him close, my head tucked into his shoulder, smothered in his musky scent, I wondered what it was that drew me to this man, why I so desperately wanted to crack his granite shell and what I would do if this was all we ever had. Afterwards, when we lay wrapped around each other and his measured breathing told me he was asleep, I thought of Jack, as I did at odd times, and how quickly and irrevocably my life changed when he died, in the blink of an eye, it seemed. I thought about how different love was with Gabe. And that someday, when the time seemed right, I would tell him how the passion I felt to connect with him overwhelmed me at times, how this desire was not like anything I’d ever experienced, even with Jack; how the feel of his hands, his husky, foreign words, the distant, troubled light in his eyes, haunted me.

  I ran my palm lightly down his forearm as it curled around me, possessive and protective even in his sleep. Someday I would tell him. But not tonight.

  TWELVE

  “THANKS, BUT WE’LL have to take a raincheck,” Gabe said into the phone as I hobbled into the kitchen the next morning. I wasn’t as sore as I expected, but I certainly wasn’t going to be dancing the ten-step tonight. He hung up the phone and turned to me, his face somber. “How do you feel?”

  “I’ll heal.” I poured myself a cup of coffee. “Who was that?”

  “Becky. She wanted to know how you were feeling and if we wanted to come over for blueberry pancakes.”

  I sat at the kitchen table. “What did you tell her?”

  “That we were going out to eat. She said to come over whenever you want, but that she’d be leaving for the church at eleven o’clock for the quilt show.” He poured himself another cup of coffee and sat across from me. “We need to talk about what happened last night, Benni.”

  I looked at him and smiled. “I was half asleep, but if I remember correctly, it was pretty wonderful.”

  He smiled back. “It was, but that’s not what I’m referring to.”

  I sighed. “I know.”

  “I’ve been up since dawn thinking, and though I hate it, we’re going to have to work together on this.”

  “You hate having to work with me? Thanks a lot.”

  He reached over and took my hand, his thumb stroking the top of it. “What I hate is you being in danger.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  “First, have you told me absolutely everything you know? We can’t work together if you’re holding back any information.”

  I said without hesitation, “Yes.”

  He contemplated me for a minute, then nodded, apparently satisfied. For some reason, in this small exchange I felt like a great milestone had been reached in our relationship.

  “Okay,” he said, releasing my hand. “The first rule is, don’t tell anyone anything.”

  “Even Dewey?”

  He sipped his coffee, looking over the rim of his mug with troubled eyes. “Even Dewey.”

  “Do you suspect him?”

  “I don’t suspect him—we just can’t trust anyone at this point.”

  “It’s because of Cordie June, isn’t it? Gabe, I don’t think she did it.”

  “And why is that?”

  I took a moment to answer. Why did I think she’d been telling the truth last night? Because she was the most obvious one? Or because I related to her being an outsider with Gabe’s friends? I touched my scraped face gingerly. The skin had already formed a thin scab. “It just doesn’t feel right.”

  “That’s the first thing a good cop learns.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Most of the time, feelings can’t be trusted.”

  “But sometimes they can.”

  He picked up our empty coffee cups and took them over to the sink. “Trust me, Benni, feelings very rarely catch a criminal. More often than not, it’s just slow, tedious footwork. Putting the tiny pieces together until you complete the puzzle. And lots of times, the puzzle is never finished.”

  “Do you think that’s going to happen this time?”

  He leaned back against the sink and didn’t answer. Instead, his eyes tapered at the corners and became hard. The dark shadow of his unshaven face gave him a ruthless look that had its beginning I suspect in the time he spent in Vietnam and later in the drug-infested streets of East L.A. I teased him about it once, telling him that he looked like one of those sociopathic Mafia hitmen you see in the movies. The hurt in his eyes when he smiled at my comment caused me never to say it again.

  “I don’t care,” he said grimly. “All I care about is getting you home safe. My instincts tell me to make an airline reservation for today.”

  “We can’t leave.” I went over and slipped my arms around his waist, hugging him hard. “How would we explain it to your mom? Besides, Becky and Angel have our wedding reception planned for next Saturday, and Dove and Daddy and Arnie are on their way.” I rested the uninjured side of my face on his solid chest. His warm morning smell made me want to forget all this talk of murder and suspects and secrets and drag him back upstairs to bed. “At least, Daddy and Arnie are. Heaven only knows where Dove is.”

  “That reminds me,” Gabe said. “Dove called while you were asleep.”

  I jerked out of his arms. “Why didn’t you wake me up? What did she say? Where is she? Is she all right?”

  “She said she’d hang up if I went for you. She promised she’d be here in time for the reception, and is apparently having a ball with Brother Dwaine. They had two conversions and a baptism last night and they’re delivering a load of donated cheese to an AIDS food bank in Muskogee.”

  I growled in frustration. “I could just strangle her. She knew she’d really get an earful if I talked to her.”

  He looked at me mildly. “I imagine that’s why she didn’t want to.”

  “What about Daddy and Arnie?”

  “Haven’t heard a word.” He pulled me back to him, rubbing his bristly chin on my hair. “Let’s get dressed and have some breakfast. We’ve got plans to make.”

  Feeling almost normal after a hot shower, I pulled on my loosest jeans and one of Gabe’s T-shirts, letting the long sleeves hang down to my elbows to hide the worst of my bruises. To make sure we didn’t run into anyone we knew, we drove over to a restaurant on the outskirts of Haysville, a town west of Derby. Sally’s Cafe was a flat-roofed concrete-colored building with a narrow, gravel parking lot.

  “My dad and I used to eat here every Saturday morning,” Gabe said. “He used to call it the Goat Roper Inn even though back then it was called Bernie’s.”

  “Why did he call it that?” I asked, opening the stained front door. My question was answered when I peered around the crowded cafe. It was obviously a hangout for local farmers. Gabe and I were the only ones not wearing dirty overalls, Western shirts, and hats advertising Kansas Pipeline Safety. Across the room we could hear some farmer saying to another, “Now, this ain’t no bullshit, he said he was an artist and he wanted to buy the bones. For a good price, too.”

  Gabe grinned at me over the black plastic menu. “Dad would have loved that,” he said.

  As we ate our breakfast, his voice moved into its no-argument chief-of-police tone. “Don’t tell anyone about the truck running you down. That’s a piece of information we need to keep to ourselves for the time being. I’m going over to the station and hang around, talk to Dewey and the deputy in charge of the investigation. Maybe somebody will say something.”

  “Then what?” I doused my buttered French toast with more maple syrup, or what appeared to be a reasonable facsimile.

  “Then I’ll work my way through the list—Lawrence, Rob, Jane
t, Belinda.”

  “I wonder who has a truck,” I mused.

  “Dewey, Rob, and Lawrence all own trucks. But last night Dewey was passing his keys around to everyone because he had a cooler of Sam Adams in the cab, so it really could have been anyone. Are you sure you can’t remember the make or the color?”

  “No. I told you, it was really dark. The headlights blinded me when it first passed, and then it hit me from behind. I fell before I could see anything.” I thought for a moment. “You didn’t have Cordie June on your list.” I wanted to be fair, even though my instincts said she didn’t do it.

  “I don’t know how I can manage a conversation with her without it looking suspicious. The rest of those people are my friends.” He stuck a piece of cantaloupe in his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully. “But I’m not quite as certain of her innocence as you are. Dewey probably kept a pretty close eye on her whereabouts last night. I’ll just have to figure out a way to ask him about it.”

  “What about Megan? And don’t forget Tyler’s husband, John. They’re possibilities.”

  “Slight. I can’t imagine Megan killing anyone. Especially over Rob.”

  “That’s where your feelings are getting in the way, Friday. Just because you knew her as a little girl doesn’t mean she didn’t grow up to be capable of murder.”

  His swift frown told me I’d hit a nerve. “I know that.”

  “So, what do I do?”

  His answer was immediate, with no hesitation. “Nothing.”

  “What!” I slammed my fork down on my plate. “You said we were working together on this. How is that possible if you’re out questioning everyone and I’m doing nothing?”

  “Don’t you have a quilt show to help Becky with?” He gave me his most winning smile.

  “That is such a chauvinistic remark that if we weren’t in public I’d smack you upside the head.”

  His smile faded. “You were almost killed,” he said. “I want you to keep a low profile.”