Kansas Troubles (21 page)

“I heard talking,” Hannah said, coming down the stairs carrying a pasteboard box. “Has someone come?”

“Tyler’s . . . uh, Ruth’s husband, John,” I said. “His sister sent you some plums, and he said he would be in the barn with Eli.”

She set the box down on the floor in front of the sofa. Her face grew pensive. “He is a good man. He appears unfriendly, but underneath he is kindhearted.”

I looked at her and wondered if she was aware that he might have been at Becky’s house the night Tyler was killed and if I should tell her.

“It has been very hard on him,” she said.

“And you, too,” I replied softly.

She sat on the floor and flipped through the patterns. “Yes,” she said, her voice a whisper. “It has been like losing half of my own heart.”

I sat crosslegged next to her on the floor. “Hannah, I talked to Detective Champagne yesterday, and he says the place where Ruth was staying . . . Well, they want her things to be picked up. They need to rent the room out. John is officially her next of kin . . .”

“Oh, I didn’t even think about that.” She touched her cheek with her fingertips, her face stricken. “I’m not sure about what to do with her things. I’m sure John would not want anything. And I . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I think it is something we must ask our bishop.” She looked away from me. “Now, where did I file that pattern?” I heard the catch in her voice and I knew she was fighting to keep from breaking down. “Here it is.” She held up a thin piece of paper. I traced the unusual quilting pattern and wrote down the information about her grandmother to tell the quilters back at the co-op. I traced a few more uncommon ones from her collection, then stood up to leave.

“Thank you,” I said. “For letting me trace these and for making the quilt. Let me know the postage costs as well as the final amount.”

“It is my pleasure,” she said. When we went out into the front yard, I saw that her buggy had made it back from Fannie’s.

“How will Fannie’s daughter get home?” I asked.

She gave me a surprised look. “Walk. It is only a few miles.”

I smiled, thinking about the teenagers I knew in San Celina who’d rather cut off their big toe than walk anywhere. Hannah walked me to my car, and as I opened the door, she blurted out, “Could you do it for us?”

“Do what?” I answered automatically. Then it occurred to me what she meant. Tyler’s possessions. My stomach churned with dread, but I also felt a guilty excitement. “Are you sure?”

“Perhaps Becky will help. Oh, forgive me for being so forward. You hardly know me.”

“I don’t mind, really. And I’m sure Becky will be glad she can help you, too. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ll need some kind of written permission. Would John give us that?”

“Let me go ask.” She ran back to the barn and returned a few minutes later holding a folded sheet of notebook paper. “Will this do?”

I scanned the neatly written note. “I’m no expert, but I can’t imagine anyone disputing this. I’ll show it to Detective Champagne.”

“Thank you, Benni. This is very kind of you.”

“It’s the least I can do,” I said, feeling embarrassed because she thought I was only helping her out of altruism. I certainly would have done it whether I was curious or not, but the prospect of poking through Tyler’s stuff intrigued me more than I cared to admit. “What would you like me to do with her things?”

She tentatively fingered the hanging string of her white cap. “John said we should just give it all to charity but . . . could you just ask Becky if she would mind keeping it until I . . .” She let her sentence taper off. I wondered what she was thinking—until she asked her bishop? or until she could bear to look at the remnants of her sister’s worldly life?

“I’m sure she’ll be glad to.”

A look of intense grief suddenly washed over Hannah’s pale face. “You know, when our mother died, Ruth and I were only three years old. We did not remember her, so we did not grieve. It is difficult to grieve for a person one never knew. When Ruth left, I thought it was the deepest hurt I could ever feel. Somehow I could bear it because I knew she was out there. I haven’t heard her voice in a year and a half, but in my mind it is as clear as Emma’s or Ruthie’s. I cannot imagine a world without her in it. I do not understand why this has happened. We are taught by our bishop that suffering is a blessing. That it can make our faith grow. I don’t know. I feel so confused. How true is my faith when I am filled with so many doubts?”

I didn’t have any answers for her. I did know that all the theology you’ve ever been taught doesn’t mean anything when you are in the midst of such fresh grief. I could only offer her what I myself had discovered. That God was still there. That her faith would sustain her. Maybe not in some hallelujah-angels-singing-from-on-high kind of way, but just by making it day to day until what seemed impossible to endure became possible.

“Give it time,” I said. “I don’t know how long it will take, but I do know it will get easier. That much I do know.”

She gave an almost imperceptible nod and didn’t answer.

I watched her slender figure as I backed out of the driveway. Standing motionless in front of her colorful flower bed in her dark dress and white cap, she looked like a painting from another era. I wondered what she thought about as she watched this English woman drive back to the world that had stolen her sister. Did she envy me? Pity me? Did my inadequate words of comfort only cause her more sorrow? I thought about the complexity of love and why it was we humans so desperately sought something that caused us as much pain as it did joy. I thought of my relationship with Gabe, how confusing it was, how I wished there were some simple answers to make it work, like a course in school—learn these rules, take the test, get an A, and live happily ever after.

Thinking of Hannah and Tyler and John and Eli, whose lives were governed by their vast set of unspoken rules, it came to me that the quandary of life was a common human predicament, that even within their ordered lives, they were filled with as much confusion and doubt as I was, especially when those lives were touched so closely by violent death, something that seemed so unnatural simply because it was. And that even though I believed in the same God they did, He was still so much a mystery to me, but that was somehow okay because who, after all, could possibly want to believe in a God small enough to be comprehended?

IT WAS FIVE o’clock when I dropped by the Derby police station. I knew I’d better hustle because Kathryn would probably be cooking supper tonight, and since I’d not done much to endear myself to her so far, I didn’t want to make matters worse by being tardy. Dewey leaned back in his chair, boots propped up on his desk, a beeping Game Boy in his hand.

I flopped down on the vinyl office chair. “Boy,
I
certainly feel safer knowing Derby’s Chief of Detectives Dewey Champagne is on the job.”

He gave a good-natured raspberry. A chorus of miniature cheers erupted from the electronic game.

“Are you going to Lawrence’s club tonight?” I asked.

He swung his legs down. “As if I have a choice. I’ve been to so many of Cordie June’s performances, I could sing backup.”

I laughed. “That’s something I’d pay at least a nickel to see.”

“That’d be about what it’s worth. Now, what can I do for you?”

“I’ve got something that’ll make your life easier.” I handed him the note that John had written.

“I’m always up for that.” He scanned the notebook paper.

“Do you think it’ll be okay?”

“Looks all right to me. Just show it to the landlady. I’ll let the sheriff’s detectives know.”

“So, just how much of a mess did you guys make?” I teased.

“Now, watch what you say. I was there when they very neatly searched it. It didn’t take long. She didn’t have much.”

“Did you find anything useful?”

He shook a finger at me. “That’s privileged information. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.”

“Well, oink, oink to you, Officer Porky.”

He laughed and handed John’s note back to me. “Just let us know if you find anything we missed.”

“Aren’t you all going to feel really stupid when we do?” I threw over my shoulder as I walked out the door. He snorted in reply.

The scent of roasting chicken told me I was right about dinner. After a quick supper and an even quicker shower, I changed into black Wranglers, my black Tony Lama boots, and a forest-green tank top with a lacy V-neck. I stood in front of the mirror and frowned critically at my curly reddish-blond hair. It had been waist-length until last December, when, in an emotionally overwrought moment, I’d cut it to the middle of my neck. It was now just touching the top of my shoulders and was still too short to braid, so most of the time I just let it hang there. I picked up a brush and attempted to tame it.

“You look great,” Gabe said, coming up behind me and taking the brush out of my hand. He brushed my hair for a few seconds, then lifted it and softly kissed the nape of my neck. “I wanted to do that the very first time I brushed your hair. Remember?”

A lump lodged in my throat. How could we care so much about each other and still have this huge gulf between us? Then I got annoyed. Men. Instead of really trying to solve a problem, they trot out old memories to distract us. And invariably we fall for it. I moved away from his seductive lips and changed the conversation. “Did you and Dewey talk?”

“Yes, I called him this afternoon. Don’t worry. He and I have been growling and snapping at each other since we were kids.” He rested his hands on my shoulders and gave me his most devastating smile. “How was the mall?”

“I didn’t go to the mall. I went out to Miller to visit Hannah.”

His genial look dissolved. “You said you were going to the mall.”

“I changed my mind.”

“What business do you have with Tyler’s sister?”

“When I visited her with Becky, she agreed to make a quilt for me, so I met her at the fabric store in Miller to pick out fabric. Then I went to her house to copy some quilting patterns her grandmother designed. She asked me and Becky to pack up Tyler’s things and store them at Becky’s until she could decide what to do with them. Tyler’s husband didn’t want them.” I still found that incredibly sad. I thought about the first six months after Jack died and how being surrounded by his possessions was the only thing that kept me sane. I remember picking up the last T-shirt he’d worn before he was killed. I folded it and set it on his side of the bed. Eventually I threw it out because I couldn’t bear to wash his scent away.

Gabe tucked his burgundy polo shirt into his Levi’s, his jaw muscles tight, hard knots. “I assume the police have searched her place already.”

“Yes, I stopped by the station on the way here and asked Dewey. He said it was okay.”

“I’m glad he feels so free about giving my wife permission to get involved in his murder investigation.”

“For cryin’ out loud, I’m not involved in the investigation. I’m just helping Hannah. What could you possibly find wrong with that?”

He ran a hand over his face. “I just don’t like you being involved in this, even peripherally. I’m not crazy about the fact that you might be the only one who heard the person who murdered Tyler.”

“The trees muffled the voices. I can’t really identify anyone.”

“That person doesn’t know that.”

“Gabe, we’ve only got a little more than a week left here. You know as well as I do they probably won’t solve her murder that quickly. Then we’ll fly back to San Celina, and this will just be a bad memory. I’m going to be okay.” I dug through my leather backpack and pulled out the essentials—keys, comb, wallet, lip gloss—to put into a compact leather-tooled purse that would be easier to carry at a club. I stuck John’s note in to show to Becky. “Really, Gabe, I’m going to be fine,” I repeated when he didn’t answer.

He just gave me a skeptical look.

Prairie City Nights was a square, monstrous building sandwiched between a Dollar-Rent-A-Car repair lot and a Wichita Holiday Inn that had seen better times. A little after eight o’clock, the parking lot was already teeming with trucks of all ages and colors with the brand names leaning toward Dodge, Ford, and Chevy. The barrelchested bouncers, dressed in black Wranglers, black cowboy shirts, and red bandannas were already guarding the double width doors taking tickets and checking ID’s. Gabe and I picked up the passes Lawrence had left for us at the ticket booth and squeezed our way into the gymnasium-style building. Lawrence and his silent business partner, one of the biggest cattle ranchers in eastern Kansas, had turned Prairie City Nights into Wichita’s most popular country-western nightclub. An oval bar dominated the center of the room with a dance floor circling it like a running track. At one end of the rectangular room, two big-screen televisions hung over a “pickup” bar made of an old red and white Chevy pickup truck cut in half horizontally; opposite the bar was the elevated stage where the band performed. Compared to the outside temperature, the air was icy cold and already pungent with the heady smell of beer, cigarettes, and the sweet cornucopia of women’s perfumes. Across the packed dance floor couples two-stepped and twirled to Vince Gill begging his lady to not let their love go slippin’ away.

“Over there.” Gabe pointed to a roped-off group of tables next to the bandstand. Janet stood up and waved to us. Becky and Stan were already there, talking to an attractive young woman with wavy brown hair and thick eye makeup, who I assumed was Janet and Lawrence’s troublemaking daughter, Megan. Cordie June was on stage fiddling with some equipment while the band set up. She wore shiny black leggings with silver, black, and electric-blue cowboy boots and a spangly blue Western jacket. I scanned the five guys in Snake Poison Posse and wondered which one was Tyler’s friend T.K.

After we ordered drinks—Coke for me and club soda for Gabe—Lawrence joined us, entering the club from a side door that was almost hidden in the wood paneling. “Everyone set up okay? Remember, everything’s on the house.”