Steps to the Altar (15 page)

I stared at him a minute, ignoring his outstretched hand. Was I being unreasonable? Or was I being the most naive wife in San Celina? Heaven knows, I wanted to believe him. But the memory of them sitting there last night at Ling’s laughing and teasing each other,
knowing
their history while I sat ignorant and smiling, was like eating a mouthful of clay.

“You should have told me your history with her before we went to dinner. I feel like a fool.”

“When was I supposed to do that? Right after I introduced you in my office? Benni, meet Del, my ex-partner who will be joining us for dinner. Oh, by the way, I’ve also made love to her. Any questions before we order our sweet and sour pork?”

His words struck with the force of an axe blow. How I wished he would have used “had sex” or “slept with” or even any of the cruder terms to describe the act. Saying he made love to her told me something about them I didn’t want to know.

“I can’t talk about this anymore,” I said, choking on the words. “Let’s discuss it tomorrow.”

He shrugged. “I don’t see what there is to discuss. As far as I’m concerned, you are overreacting.”

I bit back my response, knowing that there was no point in fighting about this anymore tonight. We’d just have to go to bed angry at each other. Not, I’m sure, a therapist’s preferred method to resolving marriage conflicts. How many times had I heard and read that couples should never go to bed angry? I guess those people had never had jobs and lives they had to see to the next day. Sometimes things just looked better in the morning . . . or at least easier. We went to sleep with our backs to each other, the storm beating hard outside, rattling the thin glass of our bedroom window.

I woke up earlier than usual after a restless night full of dreams I couldn’t recall in detail. It took a moment after my eyes opened to remember why I felt so sad and abandoned. The storm had passed and the sun was shining through the pale lacy curtains. Snowflake patterns fluttered across the oak floor. Next to me, Gabe’s side was empty and cool.

He was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper, his T-shirt and shorts still damp from his run.

“Hi,” I mumbled, heading straight for the coffeepot.

“Good morning.” He didn’t look up from the paper.

We didn’t exchange more than a few more words before he stood up and went into the bedroom to shower and dress for work.

“What’re our plans for dinner tonight?” he asked, coming back into the kitchen carrying his leather briefcase. He checked his tie in the toaster’s reflection.

“I have a dinner date with Elvia,” I lied. “So you’re on your own. I might be late. We’re going over wedding stuff so I won’t have any time to pack or move anything tonight. Are you free to move some stuff?”

He shrugged and didn’t answer my question. “Guess I’ll see you when I see you then.”

“Yep.” Fine, I thought. We’ll just leave it all to the last minute.

He gave Scout a pat on the head and left without another word.

Well, fine, I thought. That was sure smart of you, Benni Harper. Give him another night free so he can see Del.

Oh, can it, the cynical side of me said. You can’t
make
someone want to be with you. Or love you.

“Enough whining,” I said out loud, abruptly pushing back my chair and standing up. Scout jumped up, hoping for a biscuit or a trip.

“We’re getting on with business, Scooby-Doo,” I told him, picking up the breakfast dishes and dumping them in the sink. “This is just a bump in the road. I’ll just hold on and wait for her to leave.” He barked in response.

I quickly pulled on clean black Wranglers, a sage green handknit sweater that always brought me compliments, and shined my black boots. I would look good even if I felt like crap. “We’ve got a lot to do today, my boy. And it’s your lucky day because you’re coming with me.”

He ran over to the sofa, stuck his nose under the cushions, and brought out a shocking pink tennis ball, dropping it at my feet.

I scratched under his chin. “No time for ball today, my friend.”

We started off at the folk art museum, where at eight o’clock things were already busy as a Christmas Eve bus station. The frantic catastrophes were something I welcomed. Anything was preferable to thinking about my own problems. I managed to solve everyone’s immediate dilemmas and was back out the door by 10 A.M. I called Russell Hill and he said he had a free period from eleven to one and to meet him at his office. I was anxious to pick his brain about Garvey and Maple Sullivan. I left Scout in D-Daddy’s capable care and promised I’d be back in a couple of hours.

“I’ll be here all day,
chère,
” he replied.

“Hey, Benni,” Bobbie Lee called as I walked through the museum on my way out. “Met your buddy the Cajun cop yesterday.”

“Part Cajun,” I said. “Or so he claims. I wouldn’t take anything he says real seriously, if I were you. He’s kind of a bullshitter.”

“Be that as it may, he’s a cutie,” she said. “If I wasn’t already romantically attached, I’d go for him myself.”

“You girls talking about that sheriff’s detective in here yesterday?” Ruth Gibson said. “The one combing through those trunks?” She was the president of the Wandering Foot Quilt Guild in Los Osos. A snowy-haired woman with a bawdy sense of humor, she’d raised four sons and one daughter, all attorneys, so she was never without an opinion. “Can’t be shy after raising that group,” she’d always say.

“I like him,” she said, elbowing me in the side. “That husband of yours is a good-looking man, but I’d leave him in a New York minute for that sheriff’s detective.” She snapped her fingers for emphasis.

“Well, Ruth, wait’ll you get to know him a little better before making any plans to leave your husband,” I said, glancing at my watch. I didn’t want to be late for Professor Hill so he could tease me about how
some things
never change. It became a real joke between us by my senior year, my inability to make it to any of his classes on time. “He gets more annoying with time.”

“Oh, sweetie, you’ll learn when you’re my age that kind of annoying’s fun,” she said laughing. “Keeps you on your toes.”

“I’m spending more than enough time on my toes these days. You can have him.”

Walking through the Cal Poly campus always made me feel young again. Because of its agricultural roots it seemed to have a homier feel to me than other college campuses I’d visited. Being able to buy milk and ice cream in the student store produced by the Ag Department’s cows gave it a connection with our country’s rural roots that most other California universities had long lost.

Professor Hill was already in his cramped, book-lined office even though I’d arrived fifteen minutes before our scheduled appointment.

“I can come back if you’re busy,” I said, poking my head through the open door.

“You’re early!” He stood up behind his beige metal desk, brushing crumbs off the front of his dark blue widewale corduroy slacks. “What a surprise! Cookie? My granddaughter made them.” He held out a tin of oatmeal cookies. “Would you like some coffee?”

“Thanks,” I said, taking a cookie. “And yes, coffee would be nice. Cream and sugar and I
am
known to be on time once in a while. When the company deserves it.”

“Sit down, sit down.” He gestured at the chair next to his desks. While he fixed my coffee, I nibbled on the moist cookie, the first thing I’d had to eat all day, savoring its sharp cinnamon taste.

“It’s so good seeing you, my dear,” he said, setting the steaming mug next to me. His neat salt-and-pepper goatee and kind gray eyes seemed unchanged from seventeen years ago when I’d been a student in his classes. “How’s married life treating you? I must admit, the missus and I get quite the kick out of seeing your picture every so often in the society pages. Wearing a dress yet.” His eyes twinkled with amusement.

I gave a half smile. “The sacrifices one makes for love.”

“And is love treating you well?” He settled back in his chair, stroking his goatee. His voice, as even and calm as his gray eyes, beckoned confidences I wasn’t willing to give.

“Pretty good,” I said, trying to keep my face neutral.

His shaggy gray eyebrows lowered in question.

“Gabe’s a handful,” I admitted. “But we’re doing fine. Really.”

He nodded his head, watching me over tented fingers. I could tell he didn’t believe me. Was my life that much of an open book? How did people acquire a poker face? If there were classes, I needed to sign up.

“I’m here to ask you some historical questions,” I said, putting down my cookie and reaching inside my backpack for a notebook. “About an old San Celina family.”

“You know there is nothing I love better than pontificating on the foibles of our local historical figures,” he said cheerfully. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Fire away.”

“Maple and Garvey Sullivan.”

His pale lips turned up into a small, sad smile. “Ah, yes, San Celina’s infamous murderess.”

“Alleged murderess,” I said.

He nodded his head in approval. “You are technically correct, my dear. They never actually proved she killed her husband. But even I, who have a fondness for soiled doves, and for her in particular, must admit the evidence points overwhelmingly in her direction.” He picked up his chipped mug which was printed with the saying DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HERSTORY. . . . , and took a sip. “What’s brought Maple Sullivan to your attention?”

“I was asked by the historical society to catalog her belongings.”

“Part of the Sullivan house reconstruction, no doubt.”

I nodded. “When I started going through her things, I just became interested in the crime. I read her love letters to Garvey and they’ve made me suspect that she’s innocent.”

He sat back in his chair and rested his hands over his small belly. “Fair enough. So, convince me.”

That had always been his method as a teacher and was one that worked well with history students. He taught us that history was more than just recorded facts, that history was also the remembered past. That people’s memories, oral history, whether written or verbal, was as accurate, if not more accurate, than the facts found in newspapers and other official historical documents.

“Memory is more than just a function of electrical currents in your brain,” he would lecture us in his soft, monotone voice. The voice that would often lull many of his students into a dreamlike stupor on warm spring days. I, fascinated by the whole concept of memory and time and how the past and the present blend every second into one, never dozed in his classes. “Remember, humans are the only animals that know that we live at the same time we actually live. What a gift that is.” He’d clasp his hands together in wonder.

“Well,” I said slowly, trying to collect my thoughts and present a concise, believable reason why I thought she might be innocent. “I don’t so much believe she didn’t kill Garvey as that maybe the whole story wasn’t told. I think, no, make that
sense
, that maybe she didn’t, but I know for sure that we don’t know the whole story.” I sat forward, trying to convince my former teacher’s noncommittal face. “I know, I’m not being clear. But it’s her letters to him. They were so . . . loving and hopeful . . . that I can’t imagine her falling in love with another man and plotting with him to kill her husband. Not so quickly. I mean, it was only three years after they met that this happened.” I threw up my hands in exasperation. “When I say it out loud, I
know
how ridiculous it sounds. I know letters can lie. I know that even the most sincere love can go sour.”

I heard my voice catch with that statement and continued quickly, trying to cover it. “I also know that back during the war there were lots of marriages of convenience as well as those done on the spur of the moment, and it appears that Maple and Garvey’s might have been one of those. But it just seems to me that everyone assumed she killed him without looking deeper into it. I mean, maybe the guy she was supposedly having an affair with did it. He disappeared too, from what I hear.”

“Mitchell Warner,” he said. “Worked as a reporter for the
San Celina Tribune
during the war years. Part of the sporting goods store Warners.” He scratched the side of his nose with a finger. “So, have you questioned any of the Warner family yet?”

I shook my head no. “I decided to start with picking your brain and go from there. This is my game plan.” I opened my notebook and read off to him the list I had made at the library last night.

“One, see Professor Hill.” I smiled at him. “Two, find out if police file for Sullivan murder is still available. Get copy. Three, read old newspaper accounts of the crime. Four, interview Warner family members about Mitchell Warner. Five, check Internet for whereabouts of Maple Sullivan and Mitchell Warner.” I glanced up at him. “That’s a long shot, I know. They most likely took on new identities, but you should never leave off doing something just because it seems obvious. Some teacher told me that.”

His eyes crinkled in approval. “Good girl.”

I continued reading him my list. “Six, find out where historical society keeps Garvey’s belongings and go through them. Seven, question people alive during war years about the crime.” I looked up from my notebook. “I’m hoping to find a cop that worked on the case, though that’s probably expecting the impossible.” I flipped to a clean page. “That’s it so far, though I’m hoping you’ll give me some more directions.”

“Sounds like you’re doing just fine on your own, my dear. You learned your lessons well. What does your husband think of your investigation?”

I chewed on my bottom lip for a moment, then said, “I haven’t talked much with him about it. He’s pretty busy with modern-day crime these days though I imagine he’d be glad to know I was working on something that has a very low danger level.”

Russell chuckled and stroked his goatee. “I would imagine so. Your exploits have put him in the hot seat a few times, I’d venture to guess.”

I grimaced. “Your guess would be accurate. Anyway, what do you remember about the incident? If I recall correctly, you were in your early teens at the beginning of the war. And your father was mayor, right?”