The Color of Light (3 page)

“Any hard feelings afterward?”

He shook his head. “I fired the guy, and that was it. Hired someone else, a better worker. Never a shortage of guys who need a regular paycheck.”

I nodded toward the image frozen on the monitor. “Did you see Mrs. B that day, or speak to her?”

“I might have, you know, just coming and going. I don't remember; it was a long time ago.”

“Did the police ever ask you about that day?”

Slowly he shook his head. “Not the police, no. They never asked me nothing.”

The way he looked at me from the corner of his eye made me wait. I thought he was deciding whether he wanted to say something more. I topped off his mug, still waiting.

“Friends tell you something because they need your help,” he said. “Ask you to keep it to yourself, you keep it to yourself long as it doesn't hurt somebody. You know, if your dad asked me to help him sneak that French girl into the house, I'd say, fuck yourself, Al, out of respect to Betsy. But he said, Tosh, help me keep that girl away from my baby, so that's what I did.”

“Did the French girl have anything to do with what happened to Mrs. B?”

“No, no, no. 'Course not. But that's the thing, you know. Al asked me what I saw, and that was exactly nothing except maybe aphids on the Lopers' roses. If the cops asked me, I'd tell them the same, because it was the truth.”

“No strangers lurking around, other than the French girl?”

“If I saw anyone, I woulda said. But I didn't.”

“What did Dad ask you to keep to yourself about that day?”

“Just that he was out there with the camera,” he said with a nod toward the computer. “We looked at the movie, but we didn't see anything the police would want to know about.”

“Did Dad talk to your helper, too?”

He held up his hands, shrugged. “Dunno.”

“What was his name?”

“Good question.” He crossed his arms over his chest and gazed toward the ceiling as if the answer might be written there. After a moment, he laughed softly, tapping his forehead. “Almost... It'll come to me, maybe.”

“Give me a call if it does.”

“Yeah, okay. How come you're asking so many questions?”

“I don't know, Mr. Sato.” I closed the computer and set it aside. “Curiosity?”

“Nosy.” He grinned at me. “I see you on TV, you know. All the time nosing around about stuff. You was always like that, pestering about why, why, why before you could hardly talk.”

“Dear God,” I said, feeling heat rise on my face.

“I gotta go.” He finished his last bite of cookie, washed it down with coffee, and picked up his hat. “My daughter-in-law has me picking up the kids from lacrosse camp. But first I gotta top the green beans.”

“I'll give you a hand.” I followed him out, grabbing a sun hat and a muslin shopping bag from the hook by the back door on the way. “Do you need something to take veggies home with you?”

“No. I brought a box,” he said.

“I thought I'd pay Gracie a visit. Is there anything in our garden that she doesn't have in hers?”

“Gracie likes the herbs and tomatoes best,” he said. “But she didn't plant a garden this year.”

“Just zucchini?” I said.

“Not even. Zucchini planted itself, hitchhikers from last year.”

In the middle of the garden, Mr. Sato had constructed half a dozen six-foot-tall tepee-shaped frames out of bamboo stakes for the green beans and peas to climb. The vines, heavy with crop, had grown to the top of the frames by June and were now putting out tendrils that waved in the air above. While Mr. Sato cut the stray tendrils, I snipped beans and peas and distributed them between my bag and his box. The young beans were so beautiful that I picked one, broke it in half and ate it; sweet and crisp and delicious.

“When you was little,” he said, grinning at me, “you always ate those beans just like that. Sneaking 'em, like you was stealing 'em.”

“They're so good.” I popped a pea pod open and offered him the contents. With a thumbnail, he scraped the row of firm sweet peas into his mouth. “Better than candy.”

“Is your little girl as crazy as you were?”

“My little girl isn't so little, Mr. Sato. She'll be a junior in college next year.”

“She gonna come and help you out here?”

“No,” I said. “She's spending the summer in Normandy with her French cousins, getting to know them and learning how to make cheese.”

“I forgot. Gracie told me something about that.”

I knelt down to snip herbs. “How are your beautiful granddaughters?”

“Growing fast,” he said, smiling proudly as he tied the herbs into bundles with garden twine.

“Are they dancing in the Obon Festival this weekend?”

“Oh, sure. To make the old grandpa happy, my son takes them to the Japanese Cultural Center for classes.” He looked up at me. “You know, the kids got baptized Episcopalian by their mother. So, I ask my son, when you're in that big fancy church, which god does a good Buddhist boy like you pray to? You know what he says?”

“I can't imagine.”

“He says, Pop, you were a married man. You know damn well it's the one my wife tells me to.” He tapped his forehead and winked at me. “Smart boy, that one.”

The garden was abundant. It didn't take long before my bag and his box were filled: young green beans and peas, three varieties of lettuce, peppers, cucumbers and squash, with fat red tomatoes safely nested on top with the herbs.

As I saw him out the gate, he said, “I still keep my greenhouse down south of San Jose. You come see me sometimes, okay? Bring your mom.”

“I will,” I said.

He aimed a finger at me. “You better.”

I held the gate for him.

His parting words were “Lock up after me.”

After I said good-bye to Mr. Sato, I called Gracie Nussbaum to see if she was home and wouldn't mind me dropping by. Like Mom, Gracie had a full calendar, so it was rare to find her at home during the day. But I was in luck, she was in and yes, she would love a visit.

I washed my hands, found a case for my laptop, gathered up the bag of herbs and vegetables, and set out for Gracie's house three streets over.

Gracie was waiting for me in the big wood-slat swing on her front porch. On a little iron table beside her there were a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of rugelach.

“What is all that you're carrying?” she asked as she rose to meet me.

“I was in the garden with Mr. Sato,” I said, opening the bag to show her.

“Lovely.” Gracie kissed my cheek. She let me carry the bag up the steps and said I should just set it beside the front door, she'd put it away later.

“Taking a break from house clearing?” she asked, handing me a glass of lemonade after I was settled on the swing.

“Yes, but I shouldn't,” I said, steadying the swing so she could sit down beside me. “I haven't accomplished much today, one distraction after another.”

“You know, dear, I always liked that Kevin Halloran.” She passed me the plate of rugelach. “Ben did, too.”

“Exactly what made you think of Kevin just now?”

“Didn't he drop by to see you?”

“Yes, but how did you know?”

“I ran into Karen Loper at Beto's deli. She told me she saw Kevin on your doorstep this morning. Didn't he marry one of the Riley girls?”

“He did. Lacy.”

Gracie chuckled softly. “So, our boy has had his hands full, then.”

“Seems he has,” I said, biting into a raspberry-jam-filled rugelach and getting flaky crumbs all over my lap. “But Kevin can be a handful, too.”

“I forget, do they have children?”

“Two. A boy in college and a daughter in high school.”

“Hmm.” She nodded, thinking that through. Gracie is a font of information about everyone in town, but she really is not a big gossip. There is never anything malicious in what she says. I think that Gracie is just sincerely interested in people and doesn't mind sharing benign information with others who might also be interested. People seem to be comfortable telling her the most amazing, sometimes excruciatingly personal things about themselves. Gracie sorts it, keeps confidences to herself but shares various comings and goings, births and deaths with mutual acquaintances.

“Gracie,” I said. “Did you know that Beto asked Kevin to look into his mother's murder?”

“No.” Her eyes grew wide and owlish behind her thick lenses. “Did he?”

“He did.”

“Do you think that's wise?”

“Maybe not. But I understand why Beto would ask.”

“I suppose.” She seemed doubtful.

“Do you remember Larry Nordquist?” I asked.

She chuckled. “He's the boy you made cry.”

“Is that all you remember about him?”

“I remember he had a very troubled home life.” She leaned close as if to share a confidence. “Problem children sometimes are the products of problem parents, you know.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“You ask, because?”

“The brouhaha that ended with Larry in tears began when he said something crude to Beto about his mom.”

“I can't imagine anyone having anything crude to say about that lovely woman.”

“At the time, I really didn't know what it meant. But Beto understood well enough to take a swing at Larry. God, Gracie, you should have seen it. Beto connected with a roundhouse punch right to the kisser. Then he ran like hell. Our Beto was little but, God, he was fast. Larry was mortified, so he challenged Beto to a real fight, Beto's gang against Larry's gang.”

“Beto had a gang?” The notion seemed to amuse her.

“Sure. All of the fifth graders on our street.”

“As I recall, Beto was the only boy your age on your street.”

“Yep. It was a dozen girls and Beto against Larry and five or six middle-school bullies. In the end, it didn't amount to much. I took down Larry with a few cruel words and it was over.”

“Sticks and stones,” she said. “It began and ended with hurtful words.”

“All day I've been bothered by what Larry said that started it all.”

She put her hand on my knee and smiled sweetly. “So my darling Maggie has come over to ask her old Auntie Gracie a bouquet of questions about Larry Nordquist?”

“Not about Larry, but yes, lots of questions.” I stuffed the end of the rugelach into my mouth, chewed fast and washed it down with lemonade.

“Gracie, I really know nothing about Mrs. B except that she was very sweet to all of us, very tolerant of the noise and chaos when we were around. But who was she?”

“How do you mean, dear?”

“For one thing, how did she end up with Big Bart Bartolini?” I said. “When we were kids, Mr. and Mrs. B were just Beto's parents. But when I think about it now, they were an odd couple. She was beautiful, refined, gracious, young. And Bart? None of the above. How did they ever get together?”

“Your mother is probably the best source for that information. She and Tina were quite close, you know,” she said. “They worked together with Father John at your church, helping out Vietnamese refugees after the war over there ended.”

“I'll talk to Mom later. But I wondered what you might know.”

“Not very much, except that Tina and Bart met in Vietnam. He was a cook in the navy and her father was a food broker of some kind, and that's how they connected. For all of the differences between them, I can say that there was abundant love in the Bartolini household.”

“Ah yes, love.”

“You doubt it?”

“No,” I said. “I saw it for myself. But when you said that, you reminded me what I said that made Larry cry.”

“What did you say?”

“I told Larry that if he hurt Beto, no one would love Beto any less. But everyone would hate Larry more than they already did. I asked him if that's what he wanted.”

“Oh, sweetie.”

“I was ten, Gracie.”

“Dear girl.” She cupped my chin in her cool hand and turned my face toward her. “That poor boy went into a battle of the wits unarmed, didn't he?”

“I just didn't want to get socked by some pimply-faced boy, okay?”

“Okay.” She began to rise. “Will you help me put away nature's bounty?”

She led the way, carrying the plate of pastries. I followed with the lemonade pitcher and the garden bag. In her kitchen as we rinsed the vegetables, conversation remained superficial while I tried to form the big question I had come to ask in a way that she might deign to answer.

“When is your cousin Susan arriving?” Gracie asked as I spun lettuce dry. “What's her last name now?”

“Haider,” I said. “She'll be here sometime Sunday afternoon.”

“I remember her from visits years ago. Nice girl. Pretty girl. Is she coming to help you with the house?”

“In a way. I asked her to look at some things from Mom's family while she's here, in case there are pieces she wants. She's been down in Livermore all week, taking a sommelier course at the Wente Vineyards.”

“Studying wine?” Gracie frowned, skeptical. “I thought Susan had a very responsible job in Minneapolis.”

“She does, something in marketing. But wine is a passion for both her and her husband. Bob took their daughter, Maddie, off trekking in the Rockies for a couple of weeks, so Susan flew out here for what she calls wine camp. She'll be with me on Sunday and then her book club friends will join her Monday for a wine-tasting tour.”

“That does sound like fun. Maybe I'll tag along.”

“I'll let her know you're interested.”

“You'll have a houseful, Maggie. I understand your Jean-Paul is visiting this weekend, too.”

What didn't she know about my life?

“We don't have any plans beyond Friday evening,” I said. “He's coming up for an official event.”