Bittersweet (13 page)

“That's because they're fresh,” Leatha said, pleased. “Right off one of the junipers next to the lodge. What do you think of the chili?”

“I love it,” I said promptly, and dug in. “And you're right—fresh makes a big difference. I've always used dried berries in the cabbage and sausage soup that McQuaid likes. I'll make it next week and try the fresh berries. We've certainly got plenty on the trees right now.” The dried juniper berries in the grocery store come from the European juniper. Our Texas junipers are
Juniperus ashei
and their berries are more tart. I'd try just two.

“It's great chili, Gran!” Caitie said enthusiastically.

“It's wonderful,” Sue Ellen said, and turned to Leatha. “How's Sam? I'll bet he was glad to see you. Is he feeling better?”

“Some,” Leatha said guardedly. “We're just taking it day by day.” She
leaned forward. “Caitie, your mom tells me that you're going to be in your teacher's winter recital. You brought your violin with you, I hope. Will you play your recital piece for me?”

“I won't play that one,” Caitie said, very seriously, “because I need the piano accompaniment. But I've been practicing a couple of other pieces to play for you.” She helped herself to a piece of garlic bread. “And could we talk about maybe getting me a full-size violin?” she asked tentatively. “Dr. Trevor says I'm ready for it. I've been saving my egg money, but at the rate the girls are laying, it'll be years before I can afford it myself.”

Leatha had given Caitie the three-quarter-size violin I scorned when I was her age, and she had done so well with it that her teacher, Sandra Trevor, thought it was time to move up to a full-size instrument. Her grandmother had offered to get it for her, but Caitie had wanted to earn the money herself. Now, Leatha leaned across the table and patted her hand. “You keep on saving your egg money, dear. Christmas is coming in a few weeks, and I'm sure that Santa will be able to get his elves to make a violin just for you.”

Caitie clapped her hands with delight. “That's super!” she cried. “I can't wait to tell Dr. Trevor!” She gave up on Santa last year, but that didn't stop her from playing along with her grandmother's little tale.

From there, the conversation turned to family matters. Caitie reported on her ant farm, her project for the science fair. I reported on Brian's first semester at the university, where he was majoring in Personal Independence and minoring in Doing His Own Laundry, and on the holiday events that Ruby and I were planning at the shops and the tearoom. Sue Ellen wanted to hear all about that, since it was her dream to own her own business.

“Did your mom tell you I'm going to college?” she asked eagerly. “I
know it's a big dream, but I'm determined. I'm going to get my degree in . . . oh, I don't know—interior design or something like that. I love to change rooms around and have everything nice. I couldn't do that, living over at Three Gates. I'm looking forward to having my own apartment, where I can fix things up however I want.” Then she patted my mother's arm. “But I'm going to be right here for a while, helping out. We need to get Sam back on his feet first.” She leaned toward me, her blue eyes warm. “I just can't tell you how sweet your mom and dad have been to me in my time of troubles, China. It means the world, having somebody I can talk to and someplace I can come and know I'm safe.” She waved her hand. “Oh, heavens. That sounds so silly and dramatic. It's just that— Well, things have been a little rough lately.”

“It's wonderful to have you here,” Leatha murmured, with a smile for Sue Ellen that she shared—almost as an afterthought, it seemed—with me. I felt a stab of something that I hoped wasn't jealousy. I liked Sue Ellen, and I reminded myself to be grateful for the time she was willing to devote to my mother, who needed someone she could depend on right now. She needed Sue Ellen, actually. And it sounded like Sue Ellen needed her.

I learned more about that after we finished the dishes. Leatha pulled me aside and reminded me that she hoped I would be able to answer Sue Ellen's questions. “And I hope you'll be nice,” she added in a low voice.

“I'm always nice,” I said, surprised.

She sighed and shook her head. “Sometimes you're . . . well, you're a lawyer.”

“Ah,” I said. “Well, if she needs to ask a lawyer a question, she needs to get a lawyer's answer, doesn't she?”

“Just be nice,” Leatha said, and turned away. “Come on, Caitie. What kind of pie shall we make first? Peach or mincemeat?”

Sue Ellen and I turned on the outdoor light—it was pitch-dark already—and went out to unpack her Ford. It turned out to be loaded with an amazing amount of stuff. Clothes, shoes, books, record albums, a laptop, even a bag of groceries and a gray tabby cat who was not amused—a lot more than you'd think such a little car could hold. I found a wheelbarrow, and we piled it high with boxes and bags and trundled them to the lodge, Sue Ellen cradling her cat, Amarillo, in her arms. It took several trips to empty the car, but at last it was done.

Leatha had given Sue Ellen a key so she could lock the doors when she left, but she dropped it into the drawer of the nightstand beside the bed. “I don't know that I'd even bother locking up here,” she said happily, looking around the small suite. “It feels really safe.” She made a face. “I don't mean to be harping on that theme, China. It's just that it's kind of important to me right now, after the past week or two.”

“Sounds like you've had a tough time.” Mildly curious, I stacked my load of cartons on the floor next to the bed. “What's been going on?”

Sue Ellen went into the bathroom with a box of cosmetics. “Oh, just . . . stuff,” she said vaguely.

I moved a pile of clothes to the other end of the sofa and sat down. “Leatha says you have some questions you want to ask me.”

Sue Ellen came out of the bathroom. “Why do you call your mother Leatha?” she asked curiously. “And I noticed that you call your husband by his last name. Seems a little . . . well, unusual. But that's not one of the questions I wanted to ask,” she added hastily. “You don't have to answer if you don't want to.”

“My mother and I weren't very close, when I was growing up,” I said. “Back then, she wanted me to call her by her first name. I think it made her feel . . . younger, maybe.” I didn't want to tell Sue Ellen that the woman she knew now was different from the woman I had known when I was a girl. I propped my feet on the coffee table in front of the sofa and leaned back, clasping my hands behind my head.

“As for McQuaid, when I met him, he was a cop and I was a criminal defense lawyer. Everybody in that business uses last names, so we were Bayles and McQuaid. He's gotten out of the habit, but I like the name McQuaid. It seems to fit him.” I brought the subject back to her. “That's my answer. So what are your other questions?”

“Hang on a sec.” She stepped into the kitchenette, pulled a couple of soft drink cans out of a six-pack, and stuck the rest into the small fridge. Handing me one of the cans, she plopped into the chair beside the sofa, and we popped our tops in unison.

“Your mom told me you handled criminal cases,” she said, as if she were answering me. Amarillo, who had been exploring the premises, saw his chance and jumped onto her lap to get his paws warm.

“That's right. I'm afraid I don't know much about divorce law.” I was being nice. “For that, you need to find somebody who specializes in—”

“I know.” She stroked Amarillo, who powered up his purr. “I found a lawyer in Uvalde and filed last week. He told me that since Jack was being such a butthead, I should go ahead and move out.” She turned her head and touched the bruise on her jaw.

“Ah,” I said sympathetically, and my heart hardened toward her husband. There's no excuse for violence. Period. “That's too bad, Sue Ellen.”

“Not as bad as this.” She rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm so I could see the large purple bruises, then rolled down her sleeve again.

“Did your lawyer suggest a protective order? If you're afraid—”

“He did, but now that I've moved out, I don't think Jack will bother me.”

“Maybe,” I said slowly. “Still, if he's been violent, a protective order is a good idea, Sue Ellen. The penalty is hefty—up to a year in jail. That by itself could keep him away.”

“But it's not just him,” she said. “It's his buddies. Duke and Lucky. It's the three of them. I mean, I don't give a damn what happens to those other two guys. They can go straight to hell as far as I'm concerned.” She scooted the cat off her lap and began pulling her boots off. “It's Jack I worry about. Duke and Lucky are using him, and he's into something dangerous.” She grunted and yanked. “I have always been a totally loyal person, but there's a limit.”

“Dangerous? Dangerous how?”

“Oh, just . . . you know.” She thought about it for a moment, decided not to tell me, and went on. “Of course, now that I've filed, Jack can do whatever he wants. It's not my business anymore.” She dropped the boot.

Maybe yes, maybe no, I thought. “When will your divorce be final?”

“Sixty days after the first hearing.” She pulled off the other boot, and both stockings. “That's because there's nothing to fight over,” she added, as Amarillo reclaimed her lap. “No kids, no real estate. All I have is my cat, my little red Ford, and my clothes and records and stuff. And what he has, I don't want anything to do with.”

“Why?” I asked curiously. “I mean, why don't you want anything—”

“Because Jack is in way over his head in this really bad deal that Duke and Lucky have cooked up.” She wiggled her prettily polished bare toes, flexing them. “It's one of the reasons I decided to leave him. Of course there are others—like his drinking and that rodeo queen up in Bandera
last summer. But the thing with Duke and Lucky is the main reason. The big one.” Her voice had a hard edge to it. “I told him he's going to lose his job if anybody finds out. I looked it up on the Internet and found out that he could be in for a whopping big fine and jail time. That's when I told him he'd have to quit or I was leaving. He blew up and started slapping me around.”

“Quit what?” I asked. It seemed like a natural question. And I was still being nice.

She picked up her can and sipped. “What he's doing.”

“Which is?” When she hesitated, I helped her out. “For example, is he killing people? Stealing cars? Cooking meth? Smuggling undocumented workers across the border? What?”

She giggled nervously.

“I'm serious. What's he doing, Sue Ellen?” I wasn't asking out of curiosity. If she knew that he was involved in a criminal activity and didn't report it to the authorities, she risked being charged as an accessory. I liked her, yes, and I wanted to keep her out of trouble, if I could. But I confess to having a selfish motive as well, for if she got into serious trouble, she wouldn't be much help to Leatha and Sam.

She thought for a moment, chewing one corner of her lip. “Well, I guess maybe the easiest way to describe it is to say that he's stealing. From . . . from the guys he works for.” She wasn't meeting my eyes.

I prompted her. “Stealing what? Stealing money?”

Another pause, more lip chewing. “Well . . . yeah. Money is what it boils down to, I guess. Maybe you could tell me how much time he'd have to spend in jail if he got caught.”

Her hesitation led me to think that it could boil down to something else. Still being nice, I gave her the boilerplate answer.

“Okay, then, if it's actual money, the scale is pretty simple. It depends on how much. If he's convicted of taking less than $500, it's misdemeanor theft, which gets him up to a year and a possible $4,000 fine. More than that, we're talking grand theft, and there's a scale. Up to $100,000, it's third degree grand theft, and he can get up to ten years. Up to $200,000, it's second and twenty. Anything over that, first and ninety-nine. On top of the prison time, there's a potential $10,000 fine.” I paused. “And don't forget tax evasion. The feds resent it when people steal and don't pay taxes on their ill-gotten gains. And sometimes divorce doesn't untie the knot, where the feds are concerned.” I added the last sentence on purpose, but being nice, I tacked on, “Does that answer your question?”

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Ninety-nine years?” She had turned pale, and the freckles stood out on her nose. “Ninety-nine years?”

“He stole over two hundred thousand?” I was moderately surprised. “His employer leaves that much money lying around? Or your husband has access to—”

“Only for the next sixty days,” she put in firmly. “After that, he's not. My husband, I mean.” She placed both hands on her heart. “And in my heart of hearts, I'm already divorced.”

He must be playing the ponies, I thought. Or the stock market. When somebody got into first degree grand theft, it was usually a nickel-and-dime embezzlement that snowballed. I gave her a hard look. “You didn't get a share of his loot? As in dollars or diamonds or Caribbean cruises?”

“Are you kidding?” she asked. “Diamonds? Cruises? That's a laugh.”

“No, I'm serious. Did you?”

Now she was indignant. “I did
not
, swear to God, China. Not a nickel. I have no part in anything that creep and his buddies have done. And as soon as we're divorced, I'll be free of all of it.”

I shook my head. “But maybe not, Sue Ellen. The feds don't take divorce for an answer to the question of tax evasion. What they look at is your name on the joint return. If he declared his theft, you're okay. If not, you're not.”

“I'm not believing this,” she said faintly.