Irish Chain (11 page)

“Dove,” I said, not even trying to sort out her questions. “I’ve been awake exactly three minutes and I haven’t had any coffee yet. Can I get back to you on all this? Besides, aren’t you going to be late for church?”

“It’s seven o’clock. I’ve got plenty of time.”

“In the morning?” I moaned.

“I’ve been up for three hours. Heavens, it’s almost lunch time. City life has turned you mushy, child.”

“Dove, I repeat, I haven’t had my coffee yet. Do you think you can call me back in, say, two hours? Or better yet, two days?”

“Well, who licked the red off your candy, Miss Grumpy Pants? And just for the record, how are you going to spend your day? I know it won’t be in church, so I hope you’re at least doing something God wouldn’t be ashamed of.”

I sighed and ran up the white flag. It would be quicker and easier to give her a rundown of my day than to make any attempt to convince her I was a mature, responsible adult perfectly capable of supervising my own physical and spiritual life. “I’m going to the museum and catch up on some paperwork and then I’ve got twelve or so samplers to mat and frame. I have the list of people I need to interview and I’ll be calling them as soon as I can get to it. I still need to go to the library and do some research. The
Tribune
is on microfilm there back to the twenties. You’ll get a rough draft as soon as humanly possible. Don’t forget I have another job. You remember, the one that pays my rent?”

“I talked to Constance yesterday. She said you had plenty of time to do this project.”

I bit back the first response that came to my lips, since Dove was still physically capable of washing my mouth out with soap. “Look, she doesn’t really know what it takes to keep the museum and co-op going. The cross-stitch exhibit is scheduled to open next week and a reporter for the L.A.
Times
is considering doing a small article for the travel section. That will look real good on grant applications and I don’t have much time to finish.”

“Then I guess you’d better quit laying around like the Queen of Sheba and get to work. And you watch your step with that O’Hara boy. He might have settled down some, but I wouldn’t bet a yearling on it. There are plenty of us who remember that summer he lived in San Celina. We all breathed a sigh of relief when Brady sent him back to Colorado. He’s got a pretty face, but you know you can’t tell the quality of the wood by the color of its paint.”

“If you knew who he was, Sherlock, why did you ask?”

“Just wanted to see if you’d lie.” She gave a crafty chortle. “You just behave yourself. Don’t disgrace the family name.
Khodahafez.
”

“Ho-da-ha what?” I repeated to the buzzing receiver. Ever since Daddy and his five siblings banded together last Christmas and bought Dove a satellite dish, strange things had started popping out of her mouth. At least stranger than usual. Not to mention her kitchen. Nadine confided in me that Daddy had been sneaking down to Liddie’s two or three times a week for his typical dinner of beef and potatoes because Dove had served up a dish she’d copied from some foreign cooking show. He swore, Nadine said, that even the barn dogs wouldn’t touch the leftovers.

After a quick phone call to Elvia to inform her of what happened at Oak Terrace so she couldn’t complain that she always heard everything last, I made myself a cup of extra-strength coffee softened to a pale brown with canned milk. I took it and two Oreo cookies scrounged from the bottom of the cookie jar and settled down on the sofa, pulling over my legs the autumn-hued Dresden Plate quilt Aunt Garnet sent me for my last birthday. Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest, so that was just what I intended on doing, for a few hours anyway. I traced my finger over the small stitches of the quilt thinking about Miss Violet and Mr. O’Hara and how their lives were a lot like this quilt—finished, purpose accomplished. I guess that made the rest of us still works-in-progress, the final design a mystery, not knowing until our lives were over whether our pattern was pleasing or jarring, brought comfort and warmth to others or just lay on the bed and looked pretty. What patterns, what circumstances led up to Miss Violet and Mr. O’Hara’s lives being ended in such a cruel way? It was a question I knew was plaguing Gabe right now. And I’d known him long enough to be certain he wouldn’t rest until he found the answer.

I pulled the quilt up to my chin and studied Jack’s brown leather recliner. Next to it, on my great-grandmother’s antique mahogany table, books were piled haphazardly, books Gabe was studying in preparation for writing his master’s thesis in philosophy—Kierkegaard, Pascal, Gabriel Marcel, C.S. Lewis, St. Augustine. I picked up the yellow legal tablet and glanced over the notes he was making. Most of it didn’t make sense, as personal notes usually don’t:
Order of Precedence in Ethics; The Collision in Human Existence—a man who can bear being alone during a whole lifetime is farthest removed from the infant; Lying is a science, Truth is a paradox—if a person does not become what he understands, then he does not really understand it; Death is irreversible because Time is irreversible
. He had drawn a square around one thought, as if by framing it in the heavy lead of his pencil, it would be engraved in his being:
The only person who can do my real self harm is me.
I wondered which philosopher that came from. Once or twice, I’d flipped through the books he read, hunting in the highlighted passages for clues to his thoughts. So many of them seemed to dwell on death, apparently a popular subject with philosophers, and because of what he did for a living, I suppose I could see why it was a subject that fascinated him. He was such an enigma—an odd, unpredictable mixture of the physical and cerebral that both excited and troubled me at times.

I reached over and grabbed the extra large navy LAPD sweatshirt hanging casually over the chair arm. Holding it up to my face, I inhaled the heady resonance of his herbal aftershave and a strong, almost gingery scent uniquely his own. Living all my life except for the last eleven months on ranches, smells were important to me—they told you things, like whether rain was coming, how sick a cow was, if there was mold in the hay, how hard a person really worked that day. But, somewhat reluctantly, my long-held beliefs were changing. Gabe sometimes worked long hours and never broke a sweat. And what he did had just as much, if not more, value than saving a sick calf. At thirty-four, I was learning that your senses can’t always discern the truth.

By ten o’clock, I’d had my third cup of coffee and was ready to face the day. I pulled on old boots, my most comfortable pair of Wranglers, a thick, off-white fisherman’s sweater that Dove had knitted for me last Christmas, and headed for the museum.

When I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the museum, a clap of thunder reverberated like a kettledrum, and hailstones the size of Grape Nuts pelted the Chevy’s cab. Since it was Sunday, fewer cars than usual were in the small parking lot, though it might have been the weather keeping the artists home next to their cozy fireplaces. Californians, even the semirural variety, didn’t possess the mental constitution to fight the elements that people further north and back East acquire as a matter of necessity. It was not something any of us cared to admit. I’d never pulled a calf in 20°-below weather, though I knew men and women who had. I always felt a bit diminished around those hearty Wyoming and Montana ranchers—some of them my own uncles and aunts—as if I never really belonged to the club, though I’d spent more than my fair share of time with an aching arm dripping long strands of mucus and afterbirth from a cow’s difficult calving.

Belonging somewhere. And with someone. What we search for our whole lives. What I had and lost. What Oralee was trying to reconcile at such a late date in her life. I sat in the truck and stared at the black steering wheel, touching the small groove on the right side where Jack used to nervously run a thumb back and forth as he drove. I couldn’t help but wonder if the anniversary of his death this coming week would change something in me. All the “firsts” were over now—first Christmas without him, first birthday, first wedding anniversary, first . . . everything. Would the second year be any easier, or just different?

Pulling out the museum keys, I unlocked the thick carved door. Whichever co-op member’s turn it was this month to open the studios, he or she had been thoughtful enough to turn on the heat. Saturday’s mail lay on the glass counter of the small lobby gift shop. Strolling through the main hall, I scanned the return addresses, bills mostly, one grant application, one letter of refusal for a grant from a civic foundation in San Francisco. It was getting harder and harder for the museum to acquire donations, what with the recession and all. I spent a good half of my working hours filling out grant requests and drafting letters of beggary to foundations and individuals who publicly professed, even in a small way, a love for the arts. We had operating expenses to last us three months, but after that, who knew? Luckily, my salary as well as basic expenses like electricity and water were funded personally by Constance Sinclair herself, bless her noblesse-obliging little heart.

A few remaining rolled quilts from our last exhibit of antique quilts by San Celina women were stacked in the comer for their owners to pick up, and stacks of cross-stitch samplers, framed and unframed, patiently waited my attention. The hailstones slowed to a light rain, so I took that opportunity to dash across the red-tiled patio between the museum and the studios. Honeysuckle vines canopied the wooden trellis connecting the buildings and dripped sweet-smelling drops of water on my head. Through the mist, the tiny windows of the old stables shined amber with warmth and welcome. Paperwork first, I decided, then the fun part of cutting mats, framing the samplers and deciding their arrangement on the adobe walls.

Both pottery wheels were churning away when I walked into the spacious main workroom. Sweet-eyed Roberto sat at one. He was one of our newest members, a talented young artist who specialized in brilliantly colored Brazilian pottery. Malcolm, our most experienced ceramicist and one of the original members of the co-op, sat at the other. As I walked past, heading toward the back rooms and my office, Malcolm gave me a pained look.

“Help,” he said, his arms gray and shiny elbow-high with wet clay.

I gave him a suspicious look. He was known for being a great practical joker. “How?”

He grinned under his granite-colored goatee, long and straggly enough to give him a rather devilish aura. “My back. Scratch. Please.”

I reached over and scratched the middle of his blue flannel shirt.

“To the left. Lower. Harder. Oh, yeah.” A deep moan of pleasure erupted from the middle of his chest.

“I don’t recall this being in my job description.”

“Thanks, don’t tell my girlfriend, but that was the best I’ve had all week.”

I slapped his back good-naturedly. “I am going to tell her.”

“Hey, heard there was a little excitement at that old folks’ dance last night.”

“You heard already?”

“Haven’t you seen the newspaper? There’s a special insert on the murders. Buddy of mine works there. Said they called everyone up at home and had them haul their asses down there early to get it out. They’re hunting bear for breakfast going after your boyfriend. The article said violent crime has done nothing but climb since he took over as chief.”

“I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

“It’s those new owners. Ever since those sleaze buckets took over the
Tribune
, it’s sounded like one of those tabloids. Haven’t missed an issue yet. I left a copy on your desk.” He turned off the wheel, picked up a stained towel and started wiping his hands. “They happened to mention you found the bodies. And that it wasn’t your first time.” He smirked at me. “Finding bodies, that is.” Roberto’s dark eyes widened in alarm.

“Great,” I said. “I was hoping all that was in the past.”

“Benni, you know most of the people in this town are part pachyderm,” he said. Roberto’s smooth face looked confused. He was still new to this country and to English.

“Quit showing off that worthless college degree of yours. Elephants,” I said to Roberto. The confused look deepened. “You started this, Malcolm. Explain it to him. I have to get to work.”

Warming my hands with a cup of microwaved
café au lait
, I sat down in my chair and read the headline of the
Tribune
spread across my old wooden desk.

HOW SAFE IS SAN CELINA? INTERIM POLICE CHIEF HAS NO ANSWERS. The picture of the body bags being loaded into the county coroner’s black van did have a tabloidish look to it. In the background, the photographer caught Gabe holding a paper cup of coffee, standing with military erect-ness, wearing that severe, somewhat unsympathetic expression he always assumes whenever he is really upset. Mac was in the picture also, standing to Gabe’s right, his face more visually acceptable, tense and somewhat worried. The article did cast a negative light on Gabe’s administering of the police department. His only comment had been “No comment,” obviously the reason for the headline. It went on to give the basic information the police were releasing to the media. The chief investigating officer and media liaison would be Lieutenant James Cleary, Chief of Detectives. And in true tabloid fashion it was noted that the person who found the bodies, one Albenia Harper, unavailable for comment at this time, was said to have a “relationship” with a certain high official in the police department. The reporter questioned whether this would hamper the investigation of the well-loved teacher and the prominent San Celina businessman.

I couldn’t help but feel a little irrational guilt, though it certainly wasn’t my fault I found Mr. O’Hara and Miss Violet. There was no doubt in my mind that Gabe was going to be in a bad mood today. He hated having his picture in the newspaper, almost as much as having aspersions cast upon his abilities.

I threw the article aside, propped my feet up on my desk and decided to concentrate on the more important issues of the day, namely Calvin and Hobbes’ latest dinosaur adventure. A few minutes later, Malcolm sauntered in.