Jaded (16 page)

“You’re not supposed to reward K-9 animals with food,” Nelson muttered.

This was true. The dogs were rewarded with play for a job well-done, not treats. “He’s not working. He’s retired,” Lucas said. “Do you have any idea what Gran did to get the roses along the east side of the house to bloom? The stalks come up every year, but the buds don’t bloom.”

“No idea. Why?”

“Alana’s been asking about them. I didn’t pay attention while Gran was alive, and I packed her books away when Alana moved in. I thought you’d know.”

“Nope. What do you think about spending the money to fix up the library?”

There was no love lost between Nelson and Mitch Turner. Lucas knew Nelson would rather run naked through the town square than call the mayor and ask about the budget. “I think we’ve got a shrinking tax base and a growing crime problem,” Lucas said. “Alana’s updating the proposal.”

“Whatever it is, it’s too much,” he said, and looked around Lucas’s aging truck.

Lucas didn’t argue with him. He drove the Blazer because he spent less time out on patrol than his officers did, but they needed a new vehicle, upgrades to the computers and cameras in the existing cars, and that was just the top of his list.

“I hear you’ve been spending time with the librarian.”

“You know about the plumbing in that house,” Lucas said. “The kitchen’s a liability. I’m going to renovate before the next tenant moves in. She’s doing me a favor letting me work on the house while she’s still in it.”

Nelson just gave him a look. “That’s one mistake you can’t afford to make.”

His uncle’s voice was oddly gentle under the gruff. “There’s no mistake to be made,” Lucas said.

“She’s a consultant,” he said. The way he said it equated the word
consultant
with
vulture
.

“I know that.”

“Even if she was hired, she’s not local. She doesn’t know the community like you do.”

Nelson underestimated Alana’s ability to dig out, assimilate, and use information. She didn’t know Walkers Ford like he did, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. For better or for worse, she wasn’t paying attention to the way things were done, the habits and silos they all occupied. She saw the community in a completely different way, an analytical way that left no room for emotions, feelings, networks.

“She’s leaving,” Lucas said.

That was indisputable fact. She had a job to go back to, in a city famous for art, music, and theater. Family. Work that spanned the globe. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glad to see the exit for Walkers Ford. “I’m not making a mistake.”

You are
, he thought unsentimentally.
You’re making a mistake. You know it, and you’re going to do it anyway. Because knowing something’s doomed to fail never stopped you from trying. You’re a professional at tilting at windmills. Because you like jousting
.

The thought made him laugh. Nelson and Duke both looked at him curiously, but he didn’t explain.

“This was a waste of time,” Nelson said.

“Grammie died wishing she had her engagement ring back.”

“You always were soft. You can’t find every lost puppy or engagement ring.”

He knew very well what he couldn’t do, but Nelson’s cynicism was getting on his nerves. “Little things matter,” he said when he pulled into his uncle’s driveway. “You need to go see Tanya.”

“Why?”

“Because she needs you. She needs her father.”

“She’s twenty-seven years old and she’s got nothing to show for the air she breathes. No degree. No badge. No real job. All she’s done with her life is waste every chance she’s ever been given, and she’s had too many chances. I don’t know what she needs, but it’s not a father.”

“Dad doesn’t agree with any of my choices,” Lucas said, “but I still talk to him.”

“You’re a man. You take responsibility, do a hard job not many people can do. All she has to do is quit using and get a job. That’s not too much to ask.”

Is that all it took to deserve the air he breathed? Because it didn’t feel like enough. “Nelson,” Lucas said.

“She’s an addict and a user. She’s the cancer that happens when the schools and the library fails. That’s why you have a job. Someone has to cut out the cancer.” Nelson shot him a glare. “You learned your lesson in Denver. We can’t afford for you to forget.”

Lucas felt his jaw tighten. “I haven’t forgotten,” he said.

“Good. Do your job. Forget about the things you can’t control.”

Back ramrod straight, Nelson slammed the door closed and stalked up to his front door. Lucas backed out of the driveway.

7

A
LANA’S PHONE RANG
while she and Mrs. Battle were merging onto I29, headed for the eye doctor in Brookings. She answered it with the hands-free button on the steering wheel.

“Hi, Freddie,” she said.

“Why do you sound like you’re at the bottom of a big tin can?”

So much for German engineering. “I’m in my car, with Mrs. Battle. We’re on our way to a doctor’s appointment.”

“I hope everything’s all right,” Freddie said, her voice shifting smoothly from imperious sister to solicitous spokeswoman for the Wentworth Foundation.

“I’m fine,” Mrs. Battle said. “Just getting old. Your sister’s driving me to the eye doctor.”

“I can call back another time,” Freddie said, which was thoughtful, but doubtful.

“Do you mind?” Alana asked Mrs. Battle.

“Not at all.”

“Is this wedding stuff or work stuff?” Alana asked.

“A little of both. I need you to dig around and get me everything you can about the situation in Andhra Pradesh. I’m getting a very pretty, whitewashed picture from the undersecretary to the junior minister, and you know how much I hate that.”

“Got it,” Alana said.

“Any word back from the wedding locations?”

“Nothing yet, but I only sent the e-mails six hours ago. Patience, Freddie.”

“I don’t have time to be patient,” her sister said rather nonsensically. “Toby’s planning tour dates for next summer.”

“I asked about April and early May,” Alana said.

“Oh. Good. All right. That’s all I needed. Drive safely. I hope you get good news, Mrs. Battle.”

“I’m going to have to get a shot in my eye every three months,” Mrs. Battle said. “That’s the good news.”

“Well, you’ve got a positive attitude,” Freddie replied.

“That I do.”

After she hung up, Mrs. Battle looked at Alana.

“I think sometimes she calls just to hear my voice,” Alana said apologetically.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Mrs. Battle replied. “I used to call my sister for exactly the same reason. What are you doing here?”

Funny, Lucas asked the same question every other time they talked. “The contract position came up at a time when I needed a break. I’m leaving at the end of the month, but before then, I want to get this proposal ready to go.”

Mrs. Battle lifted her eyebrows at her. “Nelson Ridgeway was a hard man. He saw approaches like libraries and schools and social programs as doomed to failure.”

“With all due respect to the former chief, he’s wrong,” Alana said. “Will you help me develop the proposal? What happens after that is outside my control. But I want to give Walkers Ford the best possible plan, so the new librarian has something to stand on when she tries to get the funding to go ahead.”

Over the next forty minutes, they developed a plan of attack—who to include in the discussions, how to approach them, and when. “I think we should include Cody, too,” Alana said.

“Are you sure about that?”

“He’s bright, he’s creative, and he’s the town’s future,” Alana said. “Outside of his art classes, the school hasn’t engaged him. We need to find something that does, and we have nothing to lose. It makes me think about the technology needs. Maybe we can get equipment that would support start-ups and seed entrepreneurial business.”

“That would be tremendously helpful,” Mrs. Battle said.

Alana remembered Mrs. Battle’s kids spread out all across the country, the grandkids she rarely saw. “I don’t think we can stop the people we love from leaving,” she said quietly. “But I do think we can make it easier for them to stay, or to come back.”

“To what?”

“Jobs where they work from home. Jobs they create. A well-educated workforce with a great work ethic is an entrepreneur’s dream. There is no reason why someone from Walkers Ford can’t be that entrepreneur.”

“Not to be rude, but why do you care?”

Alana considered her words carefully. “Anything worth doing is worth doing well,” she said. “It makes no difference whether the task is preparing materials for an international conference or proposing a major renovation to the Walkers Ford Public Library.”

“That’s a very vague answer, young lady.”

“Mrs. Battle, I’m thirty years old.” And I’m secretly sleeping with your chief of police, so I’m not a lady, either.

“And I’m seventy-seven, which makes you a
young lady
and me an
old lady
. Answer the question.”

“I left Chicago under difficult circumstances,” she said finally. “I would like to go home changed.”

“No one comes to Walkers Ford to be different.”

“I did. But,” she said, thinking of Marissa and Adam, “this place seems to have a powerful effect on people.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes. Then Alana said, “Nelson Ridgeway is Chief Ridgeway’s . . . ?”

“Uncle. His father’s brother. You’re living in his mother’s house.”

“Oh. Why didn’t he inherit it?”

Mrs. Battle smiled. “Lucas’s grandmother thought it should go to Lucas. She thought he needed a place he could go to get away from his life in Denver. He loved coming there every summer, and she loved having him. I think she was trying to stop him from becoming like his uncle.”

 • • • 

THEY WERE THE
first appointment of the day at the eye doctor’s. Alana waited outside until the exam was over. The doctor opened the door and invited her inside. “You’re her granddaughter, right?”

“No, just a friend,” she replied hastily. “I’m not sure I should be in there.”

“She asked for you, so that’s good enough for me,” the doctor said.

Alana took careful notes while the doctor explained the aftercare instructions, then helped Mrs. Battle into her jacket and out to the waiting room. She made another appointment.

“We’ll have to find someone to drive you down next time,” she said lightly as she backed out of the parking lot.

“Don’t you worry about that,” Mrs. Battle said. “You’ve got plenty on your plate as it is.”

She sounded exhausted. “I’m taking you home,” Alana said. “There’s no need for you to come in to work today. Cody and I can handle it.”

“I think that’s for the best,” the elderly lady said. Both of her eyes were closed, including the one covered with gauze.

“I’ll bring you some lunch.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I know,” Alana said, “but you know I can’t eat the whole soup and sandwich from Gina’s by myself.”

She was fairly sure this wasn’t what Freddie meant when she cautioned Alana against getting entangled, but entangled she was.

 • • • 

THE TOOLBOX IN
one hand, Lucas used the other to open the door to the cellar. Alana ducked under his arm, flipped on the light switch, and walked down the stairs. Duke followed her down, his tail wagging at the prospect of a new place to explore. Lucas inhaled. No mold. The room was chilly, as the earth held on to the remains of the cold air, even as spring gained a hold aboveground.

He set down his toolbox by the pipe draining from the sink into the sewer, then headed for the main shut-off valve and switched off the water coming into the house.

“It’s chilly down here,” Alana commented, rubbing her arms. She wore jeans and a thin T-shirt again, this one printed in swirls of grays and blues.

“You don’t have to hang around while I’m working,” he said.

“I wanted to go through your grandmother’s books. If you don’t mind,” she added hastily. “I’m curious to know what she did to get those roses to grow and bloom.”

He gestured at the boxes neatly lining the wall. “Help yourself.”

She pulled open the flaps of the box and began extracting them, studying them attentively before setting them aside. He turned off the water and drained the pipes, then applied a wrench to the aging joints. For a few minutes they worked in silence.

“How’s Cody working out?”

“Fine,” she said. “He’s an interesting kid. He reads to the kids at story time, but he doesn’t use the library’s books, which Mrs. Battle finds rather scandalous. He drags the easel over to the front window and draws them pictures as he talks. The kids are utterly entranced by him.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Lucas said.

“Why not? These are all novels,” she said and closed up the box.

“Cody probably does the bedtime routine for his little brothers. I doubt there’s a book in the trailer.”

“So he makes one,” she mused. “It’s not the story the kids like. It’s the way he draws while they’re watching. He’s making magic, right there in front of them.”

Lucas yanked free a length of copper pipe and dropped it to the floor with a clatter. She opened another box, then made an interested noise. “Found them,” she said.

He focused on the pipes. After a few minutes of silence, he looked over to find her sitting on the floor, going through his grandmother’s gardening books. The covers were beautifully drawn roses twining along the dust jacket, not the glossy pictures covering today’s books.

“She wrote notes,” Alana said.

The delight in her voice made him pause. “That’s good?”

“Oh, yes. Marginalia. It’s becoming a subject matter in its own right. The study of what a book’s owner wrote tells you as much about their thought process when she was reading as the content of the book itself. You have the text, which is an insight into the writer’s mind, then the notes, which are an insight into the reader’s mind as she reads and reflects on what the writer wrote. I love marginalia.”

“It’s messy.”

“One friend of mine would study marginalia in used textbooks. If the previous owner took good, legible notes, she’d buy that book rather than a clean copy.”