Mourning Gloria (15 page)

“But why?” I asked, bewildered. “Don’t the two of you get along? She really seems to look forward to coming here every week.” I gave a rueful laugh. “I know the difference, believe me. When I was her age, I hated the violin. Hated my teacher, too. My mother had to drag me to my lessons. But Caitie is always eager to come. I’m sure she loves it.”

Brenda turned to face me. “And I love working with her.” She pushed her hair back, pulled off her glasses, and swiped her forehead with her arm. “She is—well, I’m not sure I’d call her a prodigy. But she is very talented. Very.” She put her glasses back on and looked at me. “In fact, I have never met a child as talented as she is, and I don’t know enough to teach her. I mean, I know enough about the instrument—it’s not that. I don’t quite know how to make the best of her talent. And Dr. Trevor does. She’s spent her whole career working with gifted children.”

Very talented. Gifted. “Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re telling me that this little girl . . .” I frowned. “That what Caitie is doing with that violin is different from what other kids do?”

Brenda looked at me, frowning a little. “Very different. Can’t you tell?”

“Well, no, I can’t,” I said regretfully. “To tell the truth, I have a tin ear. I know when Caitie makes a mistake and plays something over, and I know I love to listen to her. But I don’t know the first thing about music.” I was beginning to feel very foolish. I must have a tin ear when it came to being a mother, too. I didn’t even know enough to catch the signs of talent that Brenda had so easily spotted.

Brenda chuckled. “Well, unless I miss my guess, Caitie is going to show us all a thing or two. I’m looking forward to seeing what she makes of herself over the next few years.” She got to her feet. “Dr. Trevor wants you to call her. She’d like to discuss some options.”

“Options?” I got up, too, still trying to process this entirely unexpected news. “For lessons, you mean?”

“For lessons, and for a recital. And for the youth orchestra program here at CTSU.” Her smile transformed her pudgy face, as she held out her hand. “I think she’s planning to keep your little girl busy this summer.”

Your little girl.
The words echoed after Brenda had gone, and I heard them again as I picked up Caitlin’s violin case and went down the slope to the river, where she was feeding the ducks, carefully tearing the last piece of bread into tiny pieces.

“I wish I’d brought more,” she said. “I don’t have enough for him.” She pointed to a black duck swimming all by itself. “The others get all the bread before he does.”

“You can bring more next time,” I said, and hesitated. “Brenda told you that you’ll be having lessons with Dr. Trevor from now on?”

“Mmm,” Caitlin said, nodding. She threw her last crust of bread as hard as she could. It landed in front of the black duck. He gobbled it instantly.

“Is that okay with you? Changing teachers?”

“Did you see that, Aunt China?” Caitlin demanded excitedly. “He got it before they did! Finally!” She turned back to me. “Sure, it’s okay. I’ll miss Brenda, but she says I’ll move along faster if I change to Dr. Trevor.”

I regarded her. “Is that what you want to do? Move along faster?”

“Uh-huh.” She took her violin case from me. “Brenda says I might even get to have a recital this summer. If I do, she’ll come to hear me play.” She took my hand. “You and Uncle Mike will come, too, won’t you?”

“Of course,” I replied, as we started up the hill toward the car. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

As I said, life is full of surprises. I had barely gotten used to being a mother to a teenaged boy when Caitie joined the family and I had to get used to being a mom to a little girl.

And now I had to get used to being a mom to a little girl who was also a talented violinist. I wasn’t sure I was ready.

But Caitlin apparently was, and that was all that mattered.

 

 

JESSICA was very much on my mind for the next twenty-four hours, although I heard nothing from her. I thought of calling Hark to ask how the story was coming along, but postponed it. And anyway, there wasn’t time. On Tuesday, I was busy nonstop at the shop, and a dozen members of the library’s Senior Book Club came in for their monthly lunch in the tearoom, which meant a hectic couple of hours at midday. I also had to finish my article for the
Enterprise
, which I somehow managed to do, between customers.

It was nearly four when I glanced at the clock and realized I hadn’t heard from Donna Fletcher, either, not since the morning of the day before. I phoned and caught her just coming in from the gardens.

She sounded dispirited as she answered my questions. No, Terry hadn’t come home. And no, the police hadn’t turned up any sign of her. “She’s probably hanging out somewhere in Mexico,” she added bleakly. “With my truck.” The fact of the trailer fire ballooned between us, but she didn’t mention it, and I didn’t, either. There was nothing we could say that would change what had happened. Either Terry had been in that trailer or she hadn’t.

“About the truck,” I said, finally. “We’re not using McQuaid’s pickup right now. Would you like to borrow it until you get yours back?” I was sure that McQuaid would make the same offer, if he were here right now. “It’s older than anything else on the road, but it runs.”

Her breath whooshed out. “Oh, thank you!” she said, sounding overjoyed at the prospect of having wheels again. “Margie Laughton is here right now. Maybe she could drive me to your place to pick up the truck. What time will you be home?”

I looked at the clock again, thinking that I probably owed it to Hark to talk to him about Jessica. “I have to stop at the
Enterprise
for a few minutes, then pick up Caitlin at Amy’s house.” That morning, Caitie had come in with me and helped out in the shop. She was spending the afternoon playing with Baby Grace. “Maybe six? Is that too late for you?”

Donna consulted with Margie and came back to the phone. “Margie says six will work.” She took a breath and managed a small laugh. “Thanks, China. I don’t know which is worse—worrying about my sister or worrying about my truck.”

I knew she didn’t mean that. But it felt good to help her solve at least one of her problems.

PECAN Springs was established in the late 1840s by German immigrants who settled on the Fisher-Miller Land Grant, under the auspices of a German emigration company called the Adelsverein. The company hoped to establish a German colony in the Republic of Texas, which had won its independence from Mexico in 1836 but had not yet been annexed by the United States. For safety, the colonists were dispatched in groups, a smart strategy, considering that the local Indians were not absolutely thrilled at the thought of new people moving into the neighborhood. They arrived by ship on the Gulf Coast and trekked overland by horse and wagon to the gently rolling hills of the Edwards Plateau, where they settled the towns of Pecan Springs, New Braunfels, and Fredericksburg.

The Indians were definitely a problem for a year or two, but they were soon outnumbered and persuaded to retire from the field. The Germans proved to be an extraordinarily industrious lot and all three settlements prospered. Before long, Pecan Springs was the trading center of the local agricultural commerce, with grist mills, sawmills, and manufacturing shops that supplied pioneer families with farm implements, leather goods, furniture, clothing, and wagons. Settlers built their first houses out of cypress logs, but as time went on, the German stonemasons began building more permanently, with stone. A great many of the buildings in town date from that period, and they all share a distinctive look.

The
Enterprise
building, for instance. It’s two stories high, three times longer than it is wide, and constructed of square-cut blocks of light-colored native limestone. Last year, Hark moved the newspaper’s production plant to a more modern facility on the outskirts of town, brought the archives downstairs, and leased the remodeled second floor to an architect. But the editorial offices remain on the first floor, and— for better or worse—Ethel Fritz is still the first person you see when you open the front door.

Ethel is the office manager. A largish, busty, fiftysomething woman, she loomed even larger today in a purple-striped dress, her bleached hair newly done up in a towering bouffant that made her look as if she were balancing a golden beehive on her head. Ethel has never won prizes for her people skills, and she greeted me with her usual frown.

“It’s late,” she said, glancing pointedly at the clock on the wall opposite her desk. I knew that “it” was my “Home and Garden” page, which had been due today at three o’clock. It was now five fifteen. Ethel doesn’t go home until five thirty.

“Actually, it isn’t late,” I returned, with a barely hidden note of triumph in my voice. “I emailed it to Hark’s computer at two forty-five.”

“Huh.” Ethel’s frown deepened. She resists learning to use the computer. She says that people are losing their memories because they trust everything to the computer and then can’t remember a “durn thang,” as she puts it. (I have the sneaking feeling that she might be right.) Hark inherited Ethel—as well as a reporter named Gene, of the same vintage—when he bought the paper from the previous owners. He has threatened several times to replace both of them, but Gene is earnest and dogged and knows Pecan Springs inside and out, and Ethel is similarly valuable. She has worked for the
Enterprise
since she graduated high school and is acquainted with all the native Springers. She knows their family trees and all their in-laws and outlaws. She knows their sins, too, ancient and modern. She jots them all down in her mental black book.

“Actually,” I added, “I’m here to see the boss. Is he in the office?”

“Can’t say he’s in the best o’ moods.” She pushed her long yellow Number 2 pencil into the back of her beehive, where it stuck out like a chopstick. Ethel has a habit of sticking pencils into her hair and forgetting about them. I counted a half-dozen once. “You know what’s good for you,” she added darkly, “you better tippy-toe.”

“Tippy-toe? Why? What’s wrong?”

She gave me a stern look. “Might wanta ask your friend Ruby’bout that.” Ethel has the idea that Ruby has been toying with Hark’s affections, which puts Ruby in Ethel’s black book. In fact, Ruby probably has a page all to herself. Maybe two pages.

“You know she was seein’ Mr. Hibler when that Colin fella came along,” she added, with barely concealed bitterness. “Threw him for a loop. Looks to be happenin’ all over again, I’m sorry to say.” She picked up another pencil and stuck it in her hair. “Some cowboy this time, is what I heard.”

“That Colin fella” was Colin Fowler. And yes, it is true that Ruby lost her heart to Colin, and that Hark took it hard when it happened. But Colin is dead now, and I was hoping that this episode had been forgotten. It had not, obviously, by Ethel. And if she had already heard about “some cowboy,” she had probably been listening in on a phone conversation between Hark and Ruby.

There was nothing I could say except, “Thanks for the warning, Ethel.” I was already on my way down the narrow hallway, on tippy-toes.

The door was open and Hark was hunched at his desk, his chin on his hand, staring into his computer monitor. His tie was loose and the sleeves of his rumpled white shirt were rolled up. A large electric fan on the filing cabinet riffled the papers at his elbow. There was a mug of black tea on his desk. Hark drinks it by the gallon, unsweetened, always blistering hot, always strong as barbed wire. Says he can’t take the caffeine in coffee, but caffeine in tea is different. Says it keeps him going without making his heart jump like a hoppy-toad.

He looked up at me when I appeared in the door. “Got your file,” he said grumpily. “Thanks. Looks like your page is good to go.”

“Ethel says I’d better tippy-toe.”

“Ethel’s right.”

I frowned at him. “Well, maybe if you’d danced with the one you brung, Ruby wouldn’t be rodeoin’ with that cowboy.”

“I was playing pool,” Hark replied defensively.

“So I heard.
C’est la guerre
.”

“It was an important game. Bailey was up from San Antonio. We’ve been rivals for years. I had to do it.”

“Must’ve been. An important game, that is. I hope you beat the pants off Bailey, whoever he is.”

“I didn’t. And Bailey is a she. Which makes it worse.” He sighed.

“Lost the game to a dame and now you’ve lost your girl,” I said remorselessly. “How much worse can it get?”

“I don’t know.” He gave me a pleading look. “How can I make it up to her?”

“I guess you’ll have to ask her.”

He picked up his mug and hunched down with it in his chair, shoulders sloping with discouragement. “And on top of everything else, today’s lead story has evaporated. The trailer fire.”

“Evaporated?” I was surprised. “I had lunch with Jessica yesterday, and she was hot on the trail. She had a list of places to go, people to talk to, things to see. Including the crime scene photos. She was super excited about getting a byline. In fact, I was worried that . . .” I bit my tongue. If Jessica had missed her deadline, now might not be the time to share my worries with her boss.