by Dale Mayer
“Confused about what?” Then she stopped, turned her eyes wide in delight. “Mack?”
Doreen glared at her grandmother. “I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you didn’t say you’re not, so that’s a good sign.”
Feeling that the world had gone crazy and that everybody was talking in strange languages around her, Doreen decided to ignore Nan. “What I’m trying to figure out,” Doreen said, “is when you’ll get the information from your friend’s estate.”
“I won’t know until it gets here, will I?” she said. “It would be foolish to even try to anticipate it.”
“I get it,” she said, “but waiting is hard.”
She laughed and laughed. “You have no idea,” she said. “Waiting is almost impossible, but you’re young, and waiting is harder for you than it is for a lot of people.”
“And why is that?” she asked Nan.
“Because you don’t have any patience in your life. You don’t realize that life is a process, and instead you’re all about the end goal.”
Doreen stared at her in surprise. “Am I?”
“You are,” she said. “You’re always trying to solve something or do something or get somewhere.”
“That’s interesting,” she muttered. “I thought I was all about relaxing and doing nothing.”
“Apparently not,” Nan said, with a light laugh. “Because all I ever see is that you’re worried about the tomorrows and not so much focused on enjoying the todays.”
“The todays are kind of hard,” she said. “Tomorrows always look better.”
“And that again is a sign of youth. A sign of somebody who hasn’t learned patience.”
“And here I thought I was doing so much better.”
“You are,” Nan said. “I didn’t say you weren’t. I’m just saying that you still need a little more practice at it.”
She groaned and said, “Fine. I’ll try to be patient as we wait for this package.”
Nan burst out laughing. Just then came a knock on her front door. She looked at Doreen and said, “I’ll be right back.”
She headed inside, leaving Doreen sitting here on the patio. She reached down and gently patted Mugs and Goliath, who, after an enthusiastic greeting with Nan, had settled right down. “You guys like being this close, don’t you?”
Mugs woofed. Goliath just rubbed his head into her hand, looking for cuddles. Thaddeus had taken a perch at the table, his face into the wind, catching just a corner of it as it whipped around the patio. She looked out to see the storm arrive and to see the rain coming down amid a heavy crash of thunder and lightning. “Wow, that came out of nowhere.”
Just then Nan walked back onto the patio, and she had a box with her.
“Your mail delivery?” Doreen asked curiously.
Nan nodded. “Apparently you have fortuitous timing because this is from her estate.”
Doreen looked at her grandmother in surprise. “Seriously?” Nan nodded but was obviously a little overwhelmed. Doreen realized with a wince that this was still a very emotional time for her. “I’m so sorry you didn’t get a chance to speak with your friend again,” she said to Nan.
“Me too. It would have been lovely. We were quite close for a very long time. She was devastated over the loss of her niece.”
“Of course she was. I’m sorry that she won’t be around to hear any answers.”
“I firmly believe she’ll be up there, watching you,” she muttered. “She always believed you would make the right decision someday.”
“What’s the right decision?” she asked, staring at Nan.
“Leaving Mathew of course. I told her a couple times how I thought you were close, but it never seemed to happen.”
Doreen winced, looked at her own plate, which was empty, and asked, “Why did you bring out plates?”
Nan looked at her own plate and said, “Oh my.” She hopped up, put the box on her plate on the table, and disappeared inside. When she came back out, she carried a plate of something sliced. Immediately Doreen’s stomach grumbled.
“Are you hungry, Doreen?”
“You know me,” she said, as she leaned forward to study what Nan brought out. “Zucchini bread?”
“No, this is a banana and zucchini cake,” Nan said, with a shrug. “I couldn’t decide what to make.”
“So you made both?” she asked, laughter in her voice.
“Why not?” she said. “I think I even threw pineapple in there.”
“So this is a banana, zucchini, and pineapple bread?”
Nan stared at the bread for a minute and added, “You know what? I might have thrown carrots in too.”
Hesitantly Doreen leaned forward to sniff it, then shrugged and said, “It smells good.”
“Of course it smells good,” she said. “I made it. Just don’t ask me what it’s called.”
“How about Sunday mash-up?” Doreen muttered.
“That’ll work, except it’s not Sunday, dear.” With that, Nan snagged a piece for herself, put it on her plate, and broke up a bit. She held out a little bit to Thaddeus, putting it on the table in front of him, and even he sniffed it, looked at her, and then sniffed it a couple more times.
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” Nan said, “it’s perfectly edible,” and she popped a bite into her mouth.
Doreen decided to be brave and picked up a slice, put it on her plate, and took a bite. She sat here, thinking about it. “It definitely has a little bit of this and a little bit of that,” she said. “But, all around, it’s not that bad.”
“Of course it’s not,” Nan said. She pushed off her own plate and looked at Doreen. “It’s good, isn’t it?”
“It is,” she said. “I’m pleasantly surprised.”
“You just need to have a little faith.”
“Maybe,” she said, then nodded toward the box. “Will you open that, or do you need some time?”
Nan sighed. “Probably nothing in it is of any value. It’ll just be all kinds of memories that’ll bring on the tears, and I don’t do tears well.”
“So you want to leave it until later?”
“No, there’ll be less tears if you’re here,” she said. She got up and grabbed a knife from the kitchen, then came back and cut the packing tape. As soon as it was open, she flipped up the top of the cardboard box. Meanwhile Doreen removed their plates to make some space. Out came a smaller box, containing a small packet of notebooks and a packet of letters. Nan stared at the letters. “Wow,” she said. “I’m not exactly sure what this is all about.”
“Could it be love letters?” Doreen asked.
“I don’t know about love letters,” Nan said. “I don’t remember my friend ever being the kind of person to send them, much less to get things like that.”
“But we’re all a little different when we’re younger,” Doreen said.
“Very true, very true. I even sent a few love letters in my day,” she said, then looked inside the smaller box and said, “That’s all of it. A pack of letters and a pack of notebooks.”
“Let’s take a closer look,” Doreen said. “May I?” she asked, and she reached over for the pack of notebooks.
“Absolutely,” Nan said. “I don’t have a clue what any of this is or why they would send it to me. Is there no personal note?”
In between the notebooks was a note for Nan. Doreen took it out and handed it to her, then unwrapped the binding on the stack of notebooks. They were all small, like six-by-eight. She flicked through the first one and said, “This one sounds like it’s from her marriage.”
“That’s possible,” Nan said. “She always kept diaries.”
“I’ve never understood the diary thing myself,” Doreen said. “Never understood the appeal.”
“I think they do it in order to not forget,” Nan said.
“Maybe,” Doreen said, then flicked through the next one. “This is about having her children.”
“That sounds like her.”
“Why would her f
amily think this would be of interest to you though?”
“I have no idea,” Nan said. “It’s quite possible that her family had no clue what to do with it, and she may have asked them to send everything to me.” As Nan flipped open the folded letter addressed to her, she nodded and said, “Oh, yes, here it is in the letter. She told them that whatever they didn’t know what to do with that they should send to me. Because I always knew what to do with stuff.”
After a moment of silence, Nan laughed, shaking her head. “We used to joke about it. She’d call me up and say, I don’t know what to do with this or that, and I’d tell her what to do with it.”
“That makes a certain amount of sense. So what will you do with all this stuff?” Doreen asked.
“I don’t know,” Nan said. “Is anything there of any value?”
“Of value, not really, but obviously there are some things of interest.”
“Right, and of course interest is a very different thing than value,” Nan replied.
“Right,” Doreen replied. Then she flipped through the third notebook and said, “Did she have two kids?”
“Yes, she did.”
“This is on the second one, the pregnancy, and the birth.”
“Ha,” she said. “Nobody’ll want those. Having kids was never my thing. One was enough.”
“Maybe she thought you would enjoy experiencing it through her.”
“Maybe. You never really know what people think sometimes,” she said, shaking her head, as she looked at the notebooks. “Anything of interest there?”
“Maybe, or maybe not,” Doreen said, as she got to the last one. “Ah,” she said, “this one is on her niece.”
“Good. That’ll be the one that we want to look at,” Nan said.
And, with that, Doreen opened to the first page, winced, and said, “This is the day Annalise went missing.”
“Perfect, so that’ll have all the information she collected then,” Nan said. “I remember her carrying a notebook around.” She looked at it, nodded, and said, “You know what? I think that was the one.”
“What about those letters?” Doreen asked.
“I’m not exactly sure yet because I’m not sure what they are,” she said. “Do you want to go through that journal first?”
“Do you mind if I take it home, so I can match it up with the notes I have at home?”
“No, not at all. That makes sense. I really don’t want to know too much about Bob Small’s serial-killing life anyway.”
With that, Doreen tucked it into her pocket and said, “Now, what about the letters?”
“I don’t know,” Nan said, looking at them. “I’m not really sure what to do with somebody’s letters, written for only a particular person to see, especially if these are love letters. Seems too personal, too invasive to read them. And I’m her friend. Just think what her children may have thought?”
“May I take a look?” Nan nodded and handed the stack over. “They’re all addressed to one person,” Doreen said, “and she just calls him B.” Doreen winced. “Please tell me that Hinja didn’t have a relationship with Bob Small.”
“Of course not,” Nan said. “Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know, but maybe Bob Small found his victims through other people’s family and friends.”
“Now that would be horrible,” Nan said, staring at her. “You mean, have a relationship with Hinja and then steal her niece?”
“It happens all the time,” Doreen said quietly. “If he was a trucker, he wouldn’t be around much, so I don’t know how your friend would have gotten to know him very well.”
“She had separated from her husband, not long after the second child was born. She was pretty mixed up for a long time. She did have some pretty wild and terrible relationships,” Nan said, staring in horror at the stack of letters in front of her. “I sure hope it’s not who you’re thinking it is.”
“I hope not too. But it would explain why Hinja thinks Bob Small had something to do with Annalise going missing. Maybe something’s in here about that.”
“Love letters from the dead,” Nan said, with a shiver. “That would make for a terrible horror movie.”
“Maybe some terrible truths are in here too,” Doreen said.
Nan’s phone rang. She looked at it and then laughed in delight. “You can take it all home with you,” she said. “I don’t think I really want to get too close to some of that. I’d like to have a few memories of my friend that aren’t tarnished by thinking she was with that guy.”
“How about I go through them, and I’ll tell you some of what I find?”
“Yes, you do that,” she said. “Meanwhile I’m off to play poker.”
“Nan,” Doreen said in a warning voice.
She looked at her granddaughter. “Ah, don’t worry about it,” she said. “It’ll help take my mind off all that.” She pointed at the letters in Doreen’s hand. “And you don’t want me dwelling on that. It’s just very sad. This will make me happy today. So, go off and do your thing, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
With that, Nan got up and rushed Doreen forward to the patio’s edge. It was unlike Nan to be in this much of a hurry to get rid of them, and Doreen said, “Nan, you’re worrying me. What’s this all about?”
“I’m just feeling upset,” she said. “It’s been an upsetting day.”
“Okay, I’m sorry,” she said. “Love you lots.” She stepped out into the rain, hating that she would walk home in it. She looked at the animals and said, “Time to run, guys.” And they picked up the pace and raced all the way back home again.
Chapter 9
As soon as Doreen got home, she walked in through the back door, only to hear Mack calling out from the front door. She walked through and opened up the front door to find him standing there, a big pizza in his hand. She stared at him in surprise. “Hi. Where’d you get the pizza from?”
“I just ran by and grabbed it,” he said. “I can’t stay long, but I figured you probably hadn’t eaten.”
“Depends on if you call eating trying Nan’s banana-carrot-pineapple-zucchini bread.”
He stared at her in horror, but she shrugged. “Nan was a little confused today. She made all that in the same loaf, though honestly it wasn’t half bad.” He stared at her, as if she had just said something terrible. “I get it,” she said. “It’s not anything I would normally eat, but it was okay. I did only have one piece though.”
“Yeah, I wonder why,” he muttered.
She laughed. “Besides, I’m always happy to see food.”
“Good,” he said. “I know that it’s early, but I figured, since I had to go back to my office for a few more hours, this would be a good way to get a bite to eat.”
“Perfect,” she said, leading the way to the kitchen.
He looked at her and asked, “Did you just come in?”
“Yeah, I came in the back way in the pouring rain,” she said, still holding the box she’d gotten from Nan.
“What’s all that?”
“Huh,” she said. “You won’t believe it.” She explained, as she got out plates and put on hot coffee.
He asked, “Seriously?”
“Yeah, it looks like it may be love letters and some other stuff,” she said, downplaying what was in the box. “I don’t know exactly what it is yet—or why anybody would keep a love letter. I understand while you’re alive maybe,” she said, “but I wouldn’t want whoever reading any love letters of mine.”
“Your heirs must get rid of it,” he said.
“In this case I guess Hinja told them to send everything to Nan.”
“That’s interesting. I wonder why.”
“Apparently Hinja always talked to Nan before doing stuff. So, whenever she had a question about what to do with something, Nan would tell her.”
At that, Mack burst out laughing.
“What?” Doreen said.
“It’s just bizarre enough to be true,” he said, “but
why would the family burden Nan with that?”
“Maybe they thought she’d be happy to see it all.”
“Maybe,” he shrugged and opened up the pizza box. Lifting up two big pieces, he put one on each plate. “There you go,” he said. “That’s a start.”
“And a good start it is,” she said enthusiastically, as she immediately took a bite. “I hadn’t realized how hungry I was, until I had a piece of that odd bread that Nan made.”
“I still can’t believe she poured everything into the same recipe.”
“I doubt she’s the first person to do it,” she said. “And I seriously don’t know if it was intentional or like an experiment or if she honestly just forgot what she was making.”
“In Nan’s case it could be any of the above,” he said.
“How are things going for you? The case and all?” she asked him.
“What case?” he said smoothly.
She glared at him. “You can’t hide forever, you know.”
“I can try,” he said, with a cheeky grin.
She sighed. “It would be so much easier if you’d just share.”
“And it would be so much easier if you’d stay out of that part of my world,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.
She really had no answer for that, so she sat in quiet contemplation, enjoying her pizza. “This is really good,” she said, with a happy sigh. “You know what? Even though I haven’t starved, I worried that maybe I would, when I ended up single. I did have a really rough couple months,” she said. “But rather than starving, I think you’ve taken over the job of feeding me.”
“Is that so bad?” he asked.
“Maybe not,” she said, “but I do feel guilty about it sometimes.”
“No need,” he said, “because you’ll make me dinner tonight.” When his phone buzzed with a text, he glanced at it and added, “At least I hope I can get here.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m supposed to cook stir-fry by myself, right?”
“Yep, you sure are,” he said. “You are still up for it, right?”
“Absolutely,” she said, with a grin. “I’d like to learn how to make that because I really like my veggies.”
“Good,” he said. He took another piece of pizza, looked at his watch, and groaned. “I can eat this, and I probably won’t have time for any more.”
