Murder Crops Up (20 page)

Bridget was silent for a moment. “Of course, I’ll come by if you want me to, Liz. And if it will help. But I can’t take sides here, and neither should you. It seems to me that the concept of choice requires that women make a decision for themselves. Amy shouldn’t be any more swayed by the pro-lifers than by anyone else. In the end, it comes down to her own personal decision. And I’m glad to hear that she’s taking it very seriously. It’s a serious subject.”

Once more Bridget had surprised me. I had expected a woman with four young children to have more forcible views.

“Well, I think it would help her if you could come by. What do I know about the fix she’s in? Neither of us knows anything about the reality of childbirth or child-rearing.”

“Okay,” Bridget agreed. “But after dinner, all right?”

“That’s fine. I’m just making dinner now. Do you want to come over here and share ours?”

She laughed. “I’d love to, but I’d better stay home and give my family theirs. I’ll drop in around eight, after Moira and Mick are in bed.”

I felt better after I hung up the phone. I didn’t expect Bridget to make up Amy’s mind for her. But I didn’t like to see Amy in so much anguish, and I wasn’t sure I knew what to say.

There were no new messages on the answering machine.

I lingered for a minute, trying to make the telephone ring with a call from Drake. It kept silent, the disobliging thing.

I locked up again and went to cook pasta.

Chapter 23

Getting those lovely little beets and greens out of the fridge made me feel somewhat better. I steamed the beets and stir-fried their tender greens in olive oil and garlic, along with some mushrooms I’d traded salad mix for at the farmers’ market. When the pasta was cooked I tossed it all together with some Parmesan cheese and went to call Amy.

She was lying on her back on my bed. The quilt was scrunched up under her, and a big, damp splotch on one pillowcase showed that she’d been crying. She’d stopped, though.

“Dinner’s ready.”

“That’s great.” She got up and pulled ineffectually at the quilt. “I’ve messed up your bed, Aunt Liz. I’m sorry. You keep everything so tidy . . ." Her voice trailed off.

“Do you want to wash your face?”

“Good idea.” She disappeared into the bathroom, and I went to arrange the food as attractively as I could.

A few minutes later she came into the kitchen and handed me a loaf of sourdough bread. “I forgot about this. I got it when I went down to the brokerage house, before going to Mrs. Kaplan’s.”

“Thanks, Amy. That was nice.” I sliced some of the bread and thought we might have the rest as French toast in the next couple of days. Amy sat down listlessly. “How was the brokerage?”

“A bunch of people had left.” She used her fork to poke the pasta. “What all’s in this?”

“Stuff we got at the garden this morning. Baby beets and beet greens, and mushrooms, cheese—”

“Sounds good.” She took a bite, and then another. “Guess I’m going to have to start eating for two.”

“I asked Bridget to come by later. I thought you might find it helpful to talk to her.”

Amy sighed. “There’s just no getting around it, Aunt Liz. Believe me, I’ve thought and thought.”

“Well, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Amy pushed her plate aside. “Aunt Liz, I know I shouldn’t ask you if I can stay here. But if I can—if I can make it all right with Mom and get into school, will you let me stay? I promise I’ll do my share and I’ll get a job and help out with the groceries—”

She was getting choked up again.

“Amy. Take it easy. If you can make it all right with your parents, you’re welcome to stay.” I told myself this wasn’t a lie. I did welcome her. I just welcomed my privacy more. But a relative in trouble takes precedence over all the privacy in the world.

“Thanks.” She swallowed her emotions and gave me a smile. “Thanks a lot. I promise, you won’t regret it.”

Then the smile faded. She ate mechanically, not even tasting the succulent sweetness of those wonderful beets. Perhaps it is a sign of my insensitive nature, but in the course of my life, I’ve had to eat food that could only be choked down if a person was very, very hungry. Now if something tastes extra good, I can’t help but appreciate it.

We got the kitchen cleaned up before Bridget arrived. She brought with her a pan of apple crisp, still warm, carried in a basket. “I made a little one for you all since I was making a big one for us,” she explained, setting the basket on the table. “Can you tell I bought a bushel of apples recently? You can save it for later if you’re full.”

“No one smelling that could be full.” Amy perked up. “Can I get some for you, Mrs. Montrose? Aunt Liz?”

Bridget shook her head and sat at the table. “No, but if you’re going to make tea, I’ll take some of that. And please call me Bridget, Amy. When I hear Mrs. Montrose, I think I’m on classroom helper duty.”

While Amy filled the kettle, I gave Bridget an inquiring look, and she responded with a tiny jerk of her head toward the door. “Actually,” I said, raising my voice to be heard above the water, “I’m going to run over to Drake’s for a while until he calls.”

“Okay.” Amy didn’t seem to care. Perhaps she’d speak more freely to Bridget than to me, fearing that I would eventually have to tell her parents anything she confided.

There were no new messages on Drake’s answering machine. I rummaged through the CDs piled on top of the bookcase that held his sound equipment and found one of Sting’s, whom I vaguely recalled seeing in the glossy gossip magazine at the clinic that morning. I wandered through the living room as the music spilled into the air, touching the backs of the chairs, trying to imagine that I lived there with Drake.

My imagination couldn’t do the trick. I paused in the doorway to Drake’s bedroom. I could see us together—even in that room, in his big, modern bed that he straightened by the simple expedient of puffing up the sheet and flapping a comforter over it all. The thought of sharing his bed made my face heat up. It had been so long since I’d wanted to feel what I was feeling for Drake. So long since I had trusted a man to treat my feelings with tenderness.

I picked up one of his pillows and hugged it to me, a display of maudlin behavior it shames me to recount. It smelled like him. I buried my face in it and wished someone would grant me the power of knowing what was best to do. But it seemed to me that there was no decision to make—at this point, no turning back. Drake and I would end up in this bed together, probably very soon after he returned—unless he didn’t return. If he stayed in Seattle—I didn’t want to think about that. But becoming lovers wouldn’t stop him from pushing me. He’d want me to move in with him. He’d mentioned marriage.

I just couldn’t make that leap. The here and now was scary enough for me. Trying to second-guess the future was next to impossible. I could only see myself, huddled in my little house, protecting the frail shelter of the life I’d built. It was unthinkable to give that up for the even more uncertain territory of building a life with Drake.

The phone rang. I tossed the pillow back on the bed and ran for it.

“Liz.” Drake sounded exhausted. “You’re there. I was just going to leave a message."

“You’re tired. We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.”

“It’s the only thing I want right now. Well, not the only thing—” His voice softened. My face warmed again.

“How’s your dad?”

“Did the marrow transplant today. Something made him have a bad reaction. He barely made it through.”

“Oh, no.”

“He’s better now. In fact, the doctors think that was the worst of it. My mom—” He hesitated. “She’s worn out. My sister took her home. I’m staying here tonight.”

“Will you get some rest?”

“I’d conk out right now if you just sing a little lullaby.” He laughed. “I’ll sleep. But we’re all wearing out. I swear, I don’t think he’d live through another episode of this. It’s so hard to be caught between living and dying.”

“Oh, Paul.”

“What’s happening there?” He yawned. “I didn’t get my e-mail today. Bruno handling everything?”

“Yeah. He’s moving along.” I debated telling him what I knew about the investigation so far, but what was the use? He was miles away and preoccupied. Anything he wanted to know, he could get from Bruno. “Amy’s thinking about having the baby and giving it up for adoption.”

“Don’t tell me. She wants to stay with you until it’s over.” He sounded resigned.

“Yep. Liz’s home for unwed mothers. That’s what I’ll be running.”

“You don’t have to let her impose like that.”

“Yes, I do.”

He was quiet. “Guess you do, at that. Poor thing.”

I didn’t ask if the sympathy was for me or Amy. “We managed okay last summer. But I might get a regular bed for her. I don’t think that Hide-A-Bed is comfortable.”

“Is this okay with her parents?”

“If it isn’t, she can’t stay. I already told her that.”

“You’re a nice person, Ms. Sullivan. Have I ever told you that?”

“I believe you’ve mentioned it. Takes one to know one."

He laughed again. “You’re flirting with me.”

“No, can’t be. I don’t know how.”

“Well, don’t practice with anyone else.” Another yawn. “I’m going to have to hit the sack.”

“Sleep well. I’ll send positive vibrations to your dad.”

“You do that.”

I cradled the phone, still smiling. Bridget’s knock on the back door startled me. I must have jumped a foot.

“Were you talking to Drake?” She opened the door and came in, looking at me curiously. “I waited until you hung up.”

“Yeah, he called. What about your talk?”

Bridget shrugged. “We just chatted. I gave her another book—
To Love and Let Go,
by Suzanne Arms. She’s worried about the health risks of pregnancy, which are very real even for young people like her. And childbirth is very painful and also can be dangerous. It’s important to weigh it all. The man who wants her to have this baby—he’s got no idea of what she would have to go through.”

“Well, I don’t think she’s really made up her mind.” I turned off the kitchen light and ushered Bridget out. “And it’s certainly something to think deeply about, for sure. She’ll do what’s right for her, once she’s turned it all over.”

“She’s pretty levelheaded for a girl that age.” Bridget had her empty basket over her arm.

“Are you walking home alone in the dark?”

“Two whole blocks.” She grinned, her teeth flashing white in the moonlight.

“I’ll get Barker and go with you. He’s dying for a walk.”

Amy was listening to the radio while she read the book Bridget had brought. I told her where I was going, and she rubbed Barker’s ears. “Barker will be glad. He’s antsy tonight, aren’t you, big boy?”

I got the leash on him, even though he was dancing around. “Say,” Amy added as an afterthought, “I left my jean jacket at your garden plot. Do you think it’ll still be there?”

“It’ll be there tomorrow morning if it’s there tonight,” I said. “I’m not going there until daylight.”

“Guess that’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll jog Barker over tomorrow and get it.” Amy glanced down at her stomach, with that expression of mingled horror and fascination she’d been wearing all evening. “I don’t want to get fat. My friend Louise’s sister had a baby and she still looks pregnant after a year. That can’t happen to me.”

“Tell you what. I’ll go for a morning swim, then go over to the garden and put in those potatoes I forgot today. You can jog Barker over and meet me there.”

She turned back to her book and I wrestled Barker out the door.

Bridget had been walking around the yard, rubbing a leaf of the rose-scented geranium between her fingers. “Your garden is so nice, even at this time of year,” she marveled.

“At night you can’t see all the bad places.” I had neglected my daily chores in the raised beds that day.

“I see it in daylight all the time, and I still think so.” She walked beside me down the drive. Barker strained at the leash. I had to speak to him sharply. “It’s a million times better than my yard. When Moira gets to be ten, I’ll have some landscaping done. But they just kill everything now, not that they mean to, but flower beds look like mudpie vats to them, and trees are just climbing frames or sources of sticks, and Mick pulled all the flowers off my Shasta daisy to make me a bouquet. My yard is hopeless.”

I agreed with that. “Your kids have fun, though. People with those manicured lawns, you never see their children playing there.”

“They do have fun. They drive me crazy, but they enjoy it.”

“Have you finished your next book yet?”

Bridget looked around as if someone might hear her. “I can’t even start it,” she whispered. “Until the first one comes out and people buy it. I know I should be writing away and have the next one ready, like Claudia tells me to, but I can’t.”

“Well, you have Moira, too. Child-tending is a full-time occupation.” I had found that out for myself while sitting for Bridget.

“It makes a good excuse anyway.”

We were at Bridget’s house. From the sidewalk, it looked homey and comfortable, with light streaming from the living room windows. I could just see Emery’s red head bent over a book.

“Thanks for coming, and for the apple crisp.”

“Thanks for the escort.” She eyed Barker. “I guess he’s enough guard for you.”

“Certainly if anyone attacked me, he’d slobber them into running away.”

On the walk back, I didn’t feel as safe as I wanted to. I had the uneasy feeling of being followed. Finally I gave in and turned around. Carlotta was behind me.

Barker pranced toward her. “Call off your dog,” Carlotta shrieked.

“He’s not on yet. If you bother me, I’ll let him off the leash.”

“I’m not going to bother you.” She sounded breathless. “I just wanted to tell you—you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

“I wasn’t worried about you in the first place.”

“I have decided it’s the police’s job to keep tabs on you.” She sounded very prim and proper. “I shall just wait for them to deal with it.”

“Much the best policy. And don’t bother coming to the writers’ workshop tomorrow or any day, Carlotta. You aren’t welcome.”