Irish Chain (12 page)

“So, think the chief will sue?” he asked, plopping down on the old chrome-and-vinyl office chair in front of my desk.

“He’s going to be in one foul mood today,” I said, peering over the top of the newspaper at Malcolm. “And on Valentine’s Day too. Guess there’s no romance in my future tonight.”

“Valentine’s Day! Oh, no, I completely forgot. Judy’s going to kill me.”

“You still have time. I’m sure Sav-on Drugstore has a few Whitman’s Samplers left.”

“If it were only that easy. Since she went down to Orange County to visit her sister and got hooked on Godiva chocolates and South Coast Plaza, she hasn’t been the same. Drugstore candy would guarantee I’d be scratching my own back for a month.”

I folded up the comics and swung my legs down. “What’s that old saying? Can’t keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen the city or something like that. Guess it’s going to be a lonely Valentine’s Day all around.”

“Did you have big plans?”

“Not gigantic, but I did make reservations at The Rusty Spur. You know how hard it is to get those on holidays. We’ll probably go there at least. He does have to eat.”

“Well, hope your night goes better than mine,” he said morosely.

I glanced at my watch. “It’s only eleven-thirty. The mall is open until six. You have plenty of time to buy a present.”

“You’re right, but time isn’t my only problem.” He grabbed the comics, tucked them under his arm and headed for the door. “This calls for some serious concentration. I wonder how much credit she has left on her Master Card?”

After he left, I picked up the phone and dialed Gabe’s private line at the station. Lieutenant Cleary’s mild tenor voice answered.

“Jim? Is Gabe there?”

“He’s talking to the mayor on the other line. Want to hold?”

“Sure.” While waiting, I opened envelopes and sorted my mail. Five long minutes later, when I was almost ready to hang up, Gabe’s voice, terse and distracted, came on the phone.

“Yes, Benni, what is it?”

“Just wanted to say Hi.” I could hear him breathing, waiting. “And I wanted to see if we’re still on.”

“On? For what?”

“Dinner. You’re finally going to experience a true San Celina tradition. The Rusty Spur. My treat. We have reservations for seven o’clock.”

I swore I could hear gears grinding in his head. “Oh, sweetheart, I totally forgot. I don’t know, we’re up to our necks here.”

“But . . .”

“Just a minute.” I heard him put his hand over the receiver and a sharp, muffled conversation take place. In less than thirty seconds, he came back on the line. “Is that it?”

“You have to eat. Besides, reservations at the Spur aren’t that easy to get on ...” I paused, feeling a bit embarrassed reminding him about what day it was.

“I’ll see what I can do. You know the first forty-eight hours after a homicide are—” He stopped while someone spoke to him. His voice came back on the line, apologetic, but unwavering. “I’ll get right back to you, I promise.”

“Okay,” I said with a sigh.

I spent the next three hours at the word processor working on the brochure for the cross-stitch exhibit so I could drop it off at the printers the next day. After three refusals, I finally agreed to speak to a
Tribune
reporter. He wasn’t happy with my short, irritable answers to his questions. To recover, I retreated to our small kitchen where I was heating some milk for hot chocolate when Mac appeared in the doorway. He carried a brown package in his hands.

“That smells good,” he said. “Got enough for two?”

“Sure,” I said, walking over to the old refrigerator for more milk. “Have a seat.” I pointed to the pink Formica-and-chrome dinette table in the comer. “Gosh, you look gorgeous.” He wore an immaculate pin-striped navy suit, a stiff-collared white shirt and a burgundy and royal blue paisley tie. With his thick, longish hair and shiny beard, I could see what a powerful and appealing figure he could be standing behind First Baptist’s wooden pulpit. “This is the first time I’ve seen you in your Sunday-going-to-meeting clothes.”

He set the package on the table, and loosened his tie, giving a slight groan of relief. “Maybe you should come to church more often.”

I laughed. “I definitely walked into that one. I’ll start coming again, really. I’ve just been lazy.” I poured more milk into the beat-up aluminum pan, then added more cocoa. “Well, church attendance will probably be the least of your problems once it hits the singles grapevine that you’re up for grabs.”

His pale gray eyes squinted with attractive laugh lines. “It’s so refreshing talking to you, Benni. You always make me feel like a regular human being.”

“As compared to what?” I asked, stirring the milk.

“As compared to being a minister—as in ‘Watch what you say, he’s a
minister
.’ ”

“Gabe says the same thing about being a cop.”

I poured both of us a mug, then joined him at the table. “So, what brings you around on a Sunday afternoon?”

“Well, I was just visiting Mrs. Blakeman. She’s down with the gout again, but she had some samplers she wanted you to consider for this new exhibit, so I volunteered my delivery services.”

“Great, let’s take a look at them.” I carefully unwrapped the package and held the samplers out at arm’s length. “These are wonderful.” I read them out loud: “East, West, Home is Best—Myra Blakeman 1943” and ”The kiss of the sun for pardon, The song of the bird for mirth, One is nearer to God’s heart in a garden, Than anywhere else on earth—M.B. 1946.”

“Amy used to do this kind of stuff,” Mac said softly. He reached over and touched the tiny cross-stitches.

“It must be hard coming back here,” I said. He and his late wife, Amy, met in San Celina his second year of seminary when she was taking summer classes at Cal Poly and he was visiting Oralee. He married the bubbly, raven-eyed nursing student three months after they met, breaking quite a few female hearts when he did.

“It’s not too bad,” he said, sipping his drink. “It’s been five years. I know this might be hard for you to see now, but it does get easier.”

“I never really thanked you for all the phone calls last year. Your phone bill from L.A. must have been astronomical. Sometimes they were the only thing that saved my sanity.”

“I knew what you were going through and I’ve come to the conclusion, though some might argue with me, that’s one of the reasons we suffer.”

“Why’s that?”

“So we can truly empathize with others.” He picked up one of the samplers. “These are good, aren’t they?” He pointed to the date on one of them—1943. “Did you know Mrs. Blakeman’s youngest son was killed at Pearl Harbor?”

“Believe it or not, I do,” I said. “I thought her name sounded familiar. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about San Celina County right around that time. We lost quite a few guys from this area.”

“Working on a thesis?”

“Nothing that official. I’m writing the last section of the Historical Society’s book,
San Celina—The War Years
.”

“How did you get involved with that?”

“Dove, how else? She’s president, or maybe potentate would be a more accurate title.” I set the sampler down and picked up my cocoa. Talking about the Historical Society made me think of Miss Violet, who had been one of its oldest and most ardent members. The memory of Mac removing something from her room last night still pricked at my conscience. It was either confront him now or talk to Gabe. Mac was such an old friend, I really felt as if there was no choice.

“Mac, what did you pick up in Miss Violet’s room last night?”

His face froze for a moment, the corners of his mouth tightening. Then just as quickly, his face relaxed. “What are you talking about?”

I wanted to say, You’re a minister, don’t lie, but I didn’t because he hadn’t actually lied. Yet. So I did what Gabe always did when he wanted someone to talk. I kept quiet and waited.

He tugged at his ear lobe and studied me. After what seemed like ten minutes, but was probably less than two, he answered.

“Benni, I’m not going to lie to you—”

“Good.”

“And I’m not going to ask you to keep it from Gabe—”

“Even better.”

“But there’s more to this than it appears. People could get hurt.”

“Mac, people have already been hurt. They’ve been killed.”

His cheeks flushed red. “I know that. But I’m pretty sure what I took doesn’t have anything to do with Miss Violet’s or Mr. O’Hara’s murders.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t, but I also didn’t have any choice. I can’t tell you what to do, but I also can’t tell you what I took.”

“Mac, that’s withholding evidence.”

“I’m sorry, Benni.” He carried his mug over to the sink, where he washed and rinsed it with the ease of someone who had taken care of himself for a long time. Shaking it dry, and setting it in the plastic dish drainer, he turned to me, his face a mixture of sorrow and inflexibility. “You have to do what you feel is right. And so do I.” Without another word, he turned and walked out the door.

I stared at the empty doorway for a long time after he was gone. Of all people, I should have understood how sometimes doing what was “legal” and what was “moral” was not always the same thing. I’d found myself in that same confusing position not long ago. But, since being around Gabe, I’d been trying to look at things from a different perspective. Like how the law is the only thing we have keeping our society, or any other, from complete anarchy; that if you believe taking the law in your own hands is right, it gives people who might not be as moral or intelligent as you the same right. As Gabe once said, that was just one small step away from lynch mobs.

Gabe. I looked at the black and pink Felix the Cat clock on the wall over the stove. Five o’clock and he hadn’t called yet. This was the part of relationships I found so hard after all the years of being married. If it were Jack, I wouldn’t even hesitate picking up the phone and telling him to haul himself over here, it’s Valentine’s Day and we’re going to dinner. But I couldn’t do that with Gabe. I walked back to my office and stared at the phone for fifteen minutes, sending unsuccessful mental signals for him to call me. So, telling myself that women had been liberated since the sixties, and ignoring my great-aunt Garnet’s Arkansas drawl inside me scolding “Men don’t respect women who chase them,” I picked up the phone. Lieutenant Cleary answered again.

“Just a minute, Benni, he’s right here.” In seconds, Gabe came on the line.

“I’m sorry,” he said before I could speak. “I was going to call you in the next ten minutes, I swear. It’s right here on my things-to-do list.”

“Right,” I said, trying not to sound grumpy or childish, though I felt a little of both. And I couldn’t help but wonder what number I was on the list. “So, do you want me to come by the station or do you want to meet me at my house?”

“Well . . .” His voice was hesitant.

“Gabe,” I whined, telling Aunt Garnet’s voice to go pick pokeberries. “I made reservations.”

“I’m sorry, I really can’t.”

“But—”

“Benni, you know the first—”

“Forty-eight hours after a homicide is the most important,” I finished. “I know, I know. You don’t even get a meal break?”

“We’ll send out for something.”

“But—”

“I’m sorry, but I warned you police work would be like this. We’ll go out another time. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“How about if I bring something there?”

“Sweetheart, I can’t. I don’t have time for any distractions. Look, some lab results just came in and I have to go. I’ll call you later. Be good.” Before I could say another word, he hung up.

I growled at the receiver. Distractions? Be good? Hanging up when I still wanted to argue? Sometimes his attitude went way beyond condescending into downright parental. “Fine!” I snapped at the phone. “That’s just fine.” I leaned back in my chair, one foot propped on the desk, so deeply engrossed in my irritable mood I didn’t even notice Clay standing in the doorway until he spoke.

“Ma’am, if I had a bottle of Black Velvet in my hand, I’d offer you a drink,” his low voice drawled.

It sounded so much like something Jack would have said, I laughed and answered, “Sir, if you had a bottle of Black Velvet, I’d take it.”

His weathered face smiled broadly as he covered the distance from the door with two steps of his expensive black cowboy boots. Dropping down into the chair in front of my desk, he propped one foot up on the top in imitation of me.

“Hard day at the quilting rack?” he asked. The wet spots on the shoulders of his green, crisply pressed Western shirt told me it was still raining. He slipped off his hat and gave it a couple of shakes.

“Just a hard day in general.” I tilted my head and stared at the writing on the bottom of his boot. Lucchese. The Cadillac of boots. Each pair handmade and rarely under five hundred bucks. It appeared at least someone’s ranch wasn’t in receivership these days.

I took a deep breath, trying to cover my sigh. Clay O’Hara could be amusing, I knew that better than anyone, but right then, another man was the last thing I felt like dealing with.

“Well, how about that drink, then?” he asked.

I propped my other leg up on the desk and studied the scuffed toes of my brown Justins. I really needed to buy a new pair. “I was just kidding. I don’t drink.”

“Nothing more challenging than a sober woman.”

“What?” I said incredulously, shaking my head. “Clay O’Hara, you haven’t changed one bit in seventeen years.”

“Hey, it’s my dad’s line, not mine.”

“Sure fell off your lips easy.”

“You sound like a woman who needs a good meal. Or a .22 and some tin cans.”

I crossed my ankles, considering his suggestions. Both sounded pretty good at the moment.

“When a lady has to think that hard, I’d recommend the meal first,” he said firmly, standing up and adjusting his silver belt buckle. “So, where was it they had those incredible steaks the last time I was here? They were almost as good as Colorado beef.”

I hesitated before answering, knowing where this was traveling and not entirely sure I wanted to take that trip.

“The Rusty Spur,” I finally said.