“Well, of course I agreed. I modeled for him, and he tutored me in oils, but it was clear I would never be on his level. Well, one thing led to another.”
The bell by the register rang in the silence, but I couldn’t leave just yet.
“That means …” I waited for her to spell it out.
“Brad Merriman is Dina’s father. Was Dina’s father. Oh, Cic, what am I going to do?”
My office door blew open.
“Brad Merriman is my father? And you never told me?”
Dina, the living offspring of that wild summer, stormed into the room.
4
One of the more interesting characters in Grace Gulch history is Larry Grace, Bob Grace’s brother. Larry never settled permanently in the Gulch but wandered through from time to time, scattering charm like sunshine. A bad reputation clung to the “black sheep” of the Grace family, but nothing illegal was ever proven during his brief stays in town.
Suspicions abounded. In the early days, people said Larry Grace was on the run from hanging Judge Isaac Parker in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Later, after Grace Gulch enacted its own version of the infamous “bone dry” law (eight years earlier than the state did), he was suspected of selling bootleg liquor. But Larry Grace attained legendary status when he robbed a bank in oil-rich Tulsa.
From A History of Grace Gulch
Tuesday, September 12
With my new knowledge, the usual resemblance between mother and daughter faded. Dina’s cheeks flamed red with anger; the color had totally drained from the rest of her face. Although they shared the same high forehead, generous mouth and perky nose, Dina’s cheeks and chin didn’t quite match Jenna’s. I tried to bring Brad’s face to mind, to trace its contours over Dina’s. I couldn’t. I didn’t know him well enough.
Jenna looked like she might fall down if I didn’t prop her up. On the other hand, I feared Dina might stop breathing. That’s how red her face was. Someone had to take charge of the situation.
“Sit.” I used my best big-sister voice and pulled out a chair for Dina.
“But. . .” Dina protested.
“Later. Catch your breath.”
Dina plopped onto the chair.
By the time I poured us each a fresh glass of tea and split a croissant between us, the color of both sisters’ faces had returned to normal.
I waited for Jenna to take the lead. After all, this was her story. At best, I might facilitate the discussion.
“Tell me—” Dina had waited long enough.
“I never—” Both began at the same time.
Dina drew a deep breath and blew it out. “You first.”
“I never meant for you to learn about your father this way.” Jenna looked at her fingers folded in her lap as if they might hold the secret to the problems she faced.
“Did you intend to ever tell me about my father?” Dina demanded.
Jenna colored. “I always intended to, but the time never seemed right.” She sighed. “I guess I was a coward. The only good thing to come out of those difficult days was you. I’d almost prefer to forget they ever happened.”
“You are certain Brad Merriman is my father?” Dina asked with clipped syllables unlike her normal speech.
Jenna’s face drained of color. Dina’s words had stung. “Yes. There was no one else.” Jenna stopped without further explanation.
“And you didn’t think I should know, before he showed up here in Grace Gulch? What if he had approached me and said, ‘Hey, kid, how you doing?’”
Jenna looked at Dina then, fire glinting in her eyes. “He wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t. He never knew about you. I never told him.” The fire dimmed, replaced by a sheen of tears. “And now he’ll never know the beautiful girl he helped create. Oh, Dina, I’m so sorry!”
Dina blinked. “Oh, Brad’s not dead. At least not that I know of. That’s what I came to tell you.”
“Then who was it in the studio?” I asked.
“Brad’s girlfriend. Finella Gaynor.”
“Brad was dating Finella?” Jenna sounded genuinely surprised.
Dina nodded. “They’ve been seen together at the Gulch several times. I don’t know how serious it was. I’m checking into it.” A reporter’s enthusiasm infused her words.
That would have made Finella’s ex, Ham Gaynor, furious if he knew about it. Motive for murder? Stop it, I reminded myself. I couldn’t view every death as a potential homicide.
“So Brad never knew about me.” Dina had returned to the subject most important to her.
“No. I’m sure I was no more than a summer fling for him. I could tell he was going places, even then.” Jenna reached out a hand to trace Dina’s cheek. “Every time I look at you, I see him, you know. You have a lot of his spunk, his sensitivity, his zest for life.”
Dina snorted. “I’m no artist.”
“I beg to differ.” Jenna managed a small smile. “Your photos capture a lot more than a story. I have thought of displaying them in the museum, only I’d be accused of nepotism.”
“Really?” Dina drawled the word, stretching the two syllables into three. I wasn’t sure if she was expressing shock of disbelief.
“Now that you know—do you want me to tell Brad? To introduce you?”
Dina didn’t answer for a moment. “No one seems to know where he is. No one has seen him since last night.”
I remembered his surprising absence from the press conference.
Jenna’s eyebrows knit in frustration. “He’s missing? Oh, no.”
Her unease washed over me, and a nagging suspicion refused to let go. Junior kicked as if in sympathy. “Tell me. Do the police know how Finella died?”
Dina looked from me to Jenna and back again. “They’re not sure—but it looks like she died from a blow to her head.”
“Murder.” I breathed the word. “Again.”
“Brad!” Jenna cried.
Dina and I must have gaped at her, because she sputtered. “Don’t you see? Brad’s girlfriend—his studio—the police are bound to suspect he did it!”
~
Supper was already fixed when I arrived home. We didn’t have the chicken fried steak I had planned, of course, but I could live with Gilda’s version of home cooking.
My comfy dining room table looked foreign. Gilda had unearthed the linen tablecloth she had given us for a wedding present—unused in our two years of marriage—and set out my best china. Add candles and all we needed were wine glasses to make the setting perfect for the front cover of Bon Apetit. Alas, Audie and I didn’t partake of alcoholic beverages. All this, for a midweek dinner.
“Mother made deep-dish pizza. You’ll love it.”
I could buy it at the local pizza parlor. Stop being catty. I smiled my thanks and took a slice of the meat-heavy pie.
Tuesday nights used to mean heading over to the Crazy W, the family ranch, for a meal. Now we gathered only once a week, after church on Sunday. Sometimes we met for lunch during the week, now that both Dina and Jenna worked downtown as well. I said a prayer for my sisters as we settled down to the meal. Working through the secrets revealed today would not be easy.
When Audie turned his pizza crust end first, I followed his example. I took my first bite of the mozzarella-filed crust and sighed with contentment. The restaurant’s version of the specialty had bored me, but it tasted nothing like this. Gilda’s pizza deserved the china. How could I resent her presence? All she wanted was to make these last six weeks as easy as possible.
I forced myself to pause after two bites. Dr. Johnson had warned me not to overeat, and said I could avoid the trap by putting my fork down between bites. He must never have tasted pizza this good.
While I waited, Jenna’s revelations buzzed through my veins again. Should I wait until Audie and I were alone to share the news? I didn’t think I could. Excitement bubbled through my veins like hot lava, and I refused to let my mother-in-law’s presence in my home deter me from discussing the day’s events over the
supper table. “Guess what I learned today.”
“What is it, dear?” Gilda turned her eyes, almost steely cadet blue in color, in my direction. “Did the doctor tell you the sex of the baby? Usually they can tell by this time.”
I refrained from reminding Gilda that Audie and I didn’t want to know our baby’s gender before his or her arrival.
“No. It’s about Jenna.”
“But she’s your sister. Surely you two don’t have secrets.” So spoke the woman who only gave birth to one child. Maybe she had an older sister; I wasn’t sure.
Audie arched an eyebrow. I knew he shared my amusement at his mother’s remark. Given the fact that Jenna was five years older than me and left Grace Gulch as soon as she finished high school, she had done a lot of things I knew nothing about.
“What is it?” Audie asked. I appreciated his restraint in not asking, So what did she do this time?
“Brad Merriman is Dina’s father.” The words ran together as I blurted them out.
“What did you say, dear?”
I didn’t blame Gilda for not understanding.
“Brad Merr—you mean, the artist Brad Merriman?” Nothing less than this bombshell could have stopped Audie in mid-slice.
“The very same. No wonder Jenna was shocked when she learned which artist submitted the winning mural.”
“The painter is Dina’s father?” Gilda was still working out what I had said. She knew the bare bones of the story. Our family had never kept it a secret.
I nodded and took a couple of bites of pizza. I had earned them.
“Oh, dear.” Gilda dabbed her mouth with her napkin.
Audie frowned. “And now he’s dead.”
“That’s the other news. The body in the studio? It wasn’t Brad. It was Finella Gaynor. Apparently Finella and Brad had been dating.” A pang of guilt assaulted me. Was this the kind of gossip Paul warned us against in 2 Corinthians? After all, this was a family dinner, and Brad was family, in a way. I wasn’t telling outsiders.
I decided it was okay. I needed to let off steam about Jenna. Before she left, she let me know she planned to hole up at an out-of-town hotel for the night. She needed time to think. If her thoughts followed the same path as mine, she’d wonder why Brad hadn’t returned. His absence made him look guilty.
“I’m sorry to hear about Finella. She seemed like a nice woman, what little I knew of her.” Audie chewed on his pizza and swallowed. “I wonder how Brad is taking the destruction of the studio.”
I shook my head. “He’s still missing. Jenna’s worried that the police will suspect he committed the murder.”
“What murder?” Gilda cut her pizza and lifted a tiny piece to her mouth. “Surely it was just an accident.”
Audie stared at me. He must have seen the truth and worry in my expression, because he set down his pizza. “Not again.”
I nodded my head. “They believe a blow to her head killed her.”
“And you want to investigate.” A smile played across Audie’s lips.
“You wouldn’t do that!” Gilda exclaimed.
Suddenly Junior kicked me and reminded me of more important things. “I don’t want to. But Jenna’s pretty upset, and she can be very persuasive.”
“The Wilde Sisters ride again.” Audie muttered under his breath so his mother couldn’t hear. From the warmth radiating from his eyes, I knew he didn’t mind.
We finished the pizza without any further discussion of the murder. Audie devoured half of it by himself. The way he chased every crumb on the plate, Gilda must have thought I never fed him anything. Everybody loves their mother’s cooking best. Loneliness hit close to home. I couldn’t remember my mother’s cooking, except for a fabulous macaroni and cheese casserole. I had grown up on Dad’s meat-and-potatoes meals.
Gilda waved away my half-hearted offer to wash the dishes. She really is sweet. I decided to retire to bed early. Audie followed me up the stairs. In what had become a nightly routine, he removed my shoes and rubbed my feet.
“Ah.” I relaxed as my husband’s strong fingers massaged deep into the sore pads of my feet.
“Did you mean what you said? That you won’t investigate?”
I shrugged. “I don’t plan on it.”
Audie didn’t say anything while he prepared a pan of sweet-smelling foot soak. I submerged my feet in the warm liquid and sighed.
“I suppose Brad’s an obvious suspect.” Audie changed into his pajamas for bed.
“Mm-hmm.” Warmth undid the damage of a day on my feet.
Audie crossed his legs and sat at my feet. “Brad didn’t strike me as a likely murderer. He told me some pretty personal stuff during his interview about the mural.”
“That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it?” People usually concentrated on business qualifications during the hiring process.
“I asked him why he was interested in Grace Gulch. It was a reasonable question, since he was going to paint a mural about our history.”
Our history. I liked the way Audie laid claim to Grace Gulch. I wiggled my toes in the water and created a small ripple. “And that opened the door?”
“He told me that he was going to take a page from Larry Grace’s book and make restitution. I didn’t press any further, but it sounded like he was talking about unresolved personal matters.”
Jenna? Unlikely; he hadn’t contacted her since his arrival in town. “Larry Grace, huh?”
Audie lifted one foot out of the water and scrubbed it with an exfoliating sponge. Heaven.
“From what I’ve heard about Larry Grace, he was a scoundrel. So what he was saying didn’t make much sense.” Audie dried my foot and tugged on a pink hospital sock. “I might ask Dina to research it for the play.” Plans for the premier of the mural included a play about our town history, also titled Grace Gulch Gold. He had asked Dina to write the script.
A thought struck me. “Since Brad is Dina’s father—that means she’s a Grace! Can you imagine that? Since Larry Grace is her great-great grandfather, I’m sure she’d be interested.”
Audie finished with my feet. He helped me take off my jumper. Pretty soon, all thoughts of murder and mayhem fell away from our minds.
5
On the morning of August 6, 1920, Larry Grace entered the First Golden Bank of Tulsa only moments before Lincoln Oil Company would bring by its monthly deposit. With the oil business booming, they handled large amounts of money. Larry’s appearance didn’t raise any suspicions. He was a regular customer of the bank, and dropped by often. On that morning, he entertained the teller with his oft-told tale of escaping the hanging judge. In his version, the verdict was unjust, of course. Outside the door, two men stopped the oil company truck, stole the deposit money, getting clean away. That much is verified fact.
From A History of Grace Gulch
Wednesday, September 13
In the middle of the night Junior woke me up by treating my womb like a jumping gym. I ran to the bathroom and then crept downstairs for a cup of warm milk. If I could settle us both down, maybe I could snag a few more hours sleep. Junior could sleep all day if he wanted to, but the same wasn’t true for me.
It took me an extra minute to locate my favorite mug. Gilda had rearranged the shelf. I poured milk, added a dash of nutmeg and sugar, and heated it for a minute in the microwave. When the drink was ready, I took the mug into the living room and sat down in my favorite recliner with my feet up. Some nights I fell asleep in the chair, and Audie tucked a blanket around my shoulders when he discovered me. Tonight my mind kept leap-frogging through the day’s events too much for me to sleep.
Finella, dead. Brad, missing. Brad, Dina’s father.
Jenna and Audie expected me to investigate arson and murder, even if my husband had offered half-hearted objections. My thoughts circled around the news that Brad Merriman was Dina’s biological father. That fact shed new light on Dina’s personality. How could two artists produce a child with so little interest in art? Then again, Brad research
ed the details of his mural thoroughly. He went above and beyond what he needed for accuracy, and thrived on the chase. That was Dina all over. Once she had the bit of a story between her teeth, she wouldn’t let it go. They had both obsessed about the history of Grace Gulch in recent days. Brad, for the mural, and Dina, for an updated edition of A History of Grace Gulch.
Heritage. I thought of the difference between brothers Bob and Larry Grace. Bob had avoided the temptation to become a “sooner” on his desired parcel of land and handed his descendents a rich legacy. Larry was a bootlegger, swindler and thief. If I were Brad, I might not want to claim him as my ancestor.
Every family had its share of “black sheep.” I knew the Wilde family. . .hardworking Oklahoma farmers, at least back to great-grandpa Wallace who helped settle the Gulch. Not a single slacker or bad ’un among us, in spite of our name. Some people considered Jenna a black sheep, but I for one felt she had more than redeemed herself. But what about the Howes?
I sipped more of the warm milk and rubbed my tummy. “Junior, your Daddy and I will give you the best start we possibly can. And we’ll introduce you to the God who can make all things new when you make a mistake.” He stirred, a small movement beneath my hands, as if thanking me for my reassurance.
I glanced up the stairs in the direction of the guest bedroom, and thought about asking Gilda about the Howe family history. I remembered the compatibility questionnaire Pastor Waldberg had given us before the wedding. Didn’t the questions touch on similar backgrounds and family traits? My mother-in-law might shed an interesting light on some of Audie’s quirks.
I rinsed out my mug and climbed back up the stairs. If I was lucky, I might manage a few more hours of sleep before the alarm went off.
~
I knew Wednesday would be a difficult day when someone knocked at our front door while we ate breakfast.
“I’ll get it.” Audie motioned for me to stay seated. A moment later, I heard him greet our guest. “Chief! What brings you by on this beautiful morning?”
Reiner had come by our house? I couldn’t think of a single good reason for his presence. He rumbled an answer that I didn’t catch.
Darlene Franklin - Dressed for Death 03 - Paint Me a Murder Page 3
