Tumbling Blocks (16 page)

“What can you do?” Dove said. “Whatever is going on between them started a long time before you and Gabe met. Just stand out of the way, and let them work it out. You can’t be a referee in this game. You’ll only get hurt.”

Of course she was right. I repeated it to myself as I drove her home, kissed her good night and drove back to my house. I mentally reiterated her words as I took Boo out for his last constitutional, settled him into his crate, gave Scout his nightly dog biscuit and while I took a long, warm shower.

Gabe was in bed reading the latest James Lee Burke book whose character, Dave Robicheaux, a Vietnam vet like Gabe, both delighted and irritated him.

“Anyone who took that many punches would be in a wheelchair permanently,” he’d always say to me while he devoured Mr. Burke’s latest book. “And he’s always pissing off the bad guys and getting his women killed.”

“I truly appreciate that you don’t do that,” I’d tell him every time he said it. But he still always bought Mr. Burke’s latest book in hardback.

“How’s this one?” I asked, turning over on my side and propping my head up with my hand.

He peered at me over his gold-rimmed reading glasses. “Robicheaux’s pissed off some psycho, and he’s after Robicheaux’s daughter.”

“So,” I said, throwing all my good intentions to the wind. “What’s the deal between you and your mama?”

He looked back down at his book. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

I stuck my head over the page he was reading. “Good try, Friday, but we’re going to discuss this, so you may as well give in. You know I’m as persistent as a mole.”

He raised his head to look at me. There was just the slightest shadow under his chameleon blue eyes, eyes that never failed to make my heart beat a little faster. “I don’t want to talk about my mother right now. Let’s just get through her visit with as little conflict as possible. We can talk about it after she’s gone.”

I held his gaze, not convinced by his words. “I would agree to that, except I’ve been married to you long enough to know that she’ll leave, and then you won’t want to talk about her because then it doesn’t matter; she’s gone. I think we’ve been married long enough now that you can open up a little bit to me about your mom. Obviously, you two had an argument, and it would help me get through her visit if I had a little hint about what it was about.”

He lay his book down, not bothering to save his spot. “Why would you knowing what my mother and I argued about make her visit easier for you?”

I hated it when he turned homicide investigator on me, not answering my questions but posing questions of his own. I leaned over and poked a finger in the middle of his chest. “Look, mister, you’re not going to sleep tonight until you talk to me.”

He grabbed my hand and brought it up to his mouth, resting his lips on it. “
Querida
, please, I just can’t do it right now. My mother and I have lots of history, some of it good, some bad. Like all parents and children. She surprised me with this sudden marriage, and I told her so. She got a little huffy. I got a little huffy. By tomorrow, it’ll all blow over. Trust me on that. She and I have danced this dance many, many times.”

I pulled my hand out of his and laid it on his scratchy cheek. I suspected there was more to it than just the normal conflict between mother and son. There was some painful history between the two of them. When Gabe’s father died, Gabe had only been sixteen, a particularly hard age for a boy to lose his father. The only part of the story I knew was that he’d gotten into some trouble back in Kansas. His mother, probably reeling from the shock of her husband dying from a heart condition they didn’t know existed, trying to keep working as a teacher, caring for Gabe’s ten-year-old twin sisters and dealing with her own grief, did what I was sure she thought was the best thing for Gabe. She sent him to live with his dad’s older brother, Antonio, in Santa Ana, California. Uncle Tony had been a police officer in the Santa Ana police department, had four sons of his own and didn’t hesitate for a moment when Kathryn asked him to let Gabe finish out his high school years with his family.

Gabe loved and admired his father’s older brother and often gave his uncle credit for Gabe’s success both in the marines and in police work. The one thing Gabe never spoke about was what he felt about being sent away from home only months after his father died. Like his time in Vietnam, his feelings about those years were in an emotional room that he kept closed and padlocked. I had a feeling that between those long-buried feelings about his father’s death, the tragedy involving his cousin Luis, and his mother’s unexpected marriage, something was going to explode. I thought talking about it would ease some of the pressure. He obviously thought the opposite.

I thought all this as I caressed his cheek, the roughness of his evening beard tickling my hand. “You know I love you.”

“I know.” He pulled me to him, and I laid my head on his chest, listening to the thumping of his heart. I couldn’t remember exactly the age his father had been when he died of a heart attack, but I fretted about Gabe’s heart. He’d had all the tests, was given a clear bill of heart health so far, but I couldn’t help worrying that something lurked under his coppery skin, a clot or genetic flaw that would take him from me in an instant.

“I’ll be here for you,” I said. “When you need to talk.”

“I know,” he said again, stroking my hair.

I admit, as much as his vulnerability touched me, I was still a little annoyed that he’d managed to turn the conversation around so that none of my questions were answered. I felt his lips on the top of my head.

“Change of subject,” he said, deftly closing the door on any more discussion about his mother. “What’s happening with Constance?”

I pulled away from him and sat up. “That rat! She never called me back!”

“She was supposed to call you?”

“After I interviewed the three potential 49 Club members, I called her because I wanted to verify some information I discovered. She was taking a nap and not accepting phone calls. I told her housekeeper to have her call me as soon as she got up.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I swear, I’m going to shoot that woman.”

“Please, not in the next two weeks,” he said, a half smile softening his tired expression. “I’ve got enough on my plate at work.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure not to leave any clues. I think I could murder someone without getting caught.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” He pulled me back to him and kissed me hard on the lips. As he was so good at doing, his kiss made me forget his mother, forget Constance Sinclair and probably, if asked, forget my own name, for a few minutes. When he slipped his warm hands underneath my T-shirt, I pulled away from him, scooting to the other side of the bed.

“No way, Friday. Not until your mama leaves.”

“You’re kidding,” he said, giving a low, dramatic moan. “It’s the holidays!”

“That’s the dumbest reasoning I’ve ever heard,” I said, laughing. “Besides, don’t you want to hear about my investigation?”

“Not particularly,” he said, reaching over and stroking my bare thigh.

I swatted at his hand. “They are leaving the day after Christmas. You can just wait.”

He tossed his book on the floor next to the bed, causing Scout to lift his head from a dead sleep. “Okay, if I can’t have sex, then go ahead and tell me about Constance. That should cool my jets.”

“It’s okay, Scooby-Doo,” I called softly to my dog. “Go back to sleep.” Then to Gabe I said, “Well, she failed to tell me one little thing about Francie McDonald, that she’d been blackballed the last time she was up for a place in the 49 Club. By none other than Pinky Edmondson.”

Gabe slipped down under the down comforter and turned out his bedside light. “So?”

“So, that might be a motive.”

“Except for one thing.”

I cocked my head. “What?”

“This isn’t a real investigation, remember? Pinky Edmondson was not murdered. She died of a heart attack.”

I set my alarm clock for two a.m. and turned out my own light. “I know that, but I don’t have to tell you that people have killed for a lot dumber things than getting into an exclusive club.”

“It’s not real, Benni,” he repeated. “Am I going to have to take you off the case?”

“How can you take me off a case that’s not a case to begin with?” I reached over and started rubbing his stomach. It was a big house, and his mother was all the way on the other side of it.

“Don’t start something you don’t intend to finish.”

“I never do, Friday.”

CHAPTER 8

T
HOUGH I DON’T KNOW HOW THEY DID IT, THE NEXT morning Gabe and his mother were laughing and acting like nothing had happened. Well, I knew why Gabe was in a relaxed mood, and I took a little credit for that.

But I was more than a little bleary-eyed when I walked into the kitchen at seven a.m. carrying Boo and wearing the kelly green cashmere bathrobe my cousin Emory bought me for my birthday this year.

“Cashmere and puppy,” Gabe commented as he scrambled eggs. “Probably not the wisest combination.”

His mother was sitting at the kitchen table dressed in knife-pressed khaki slacks and a red sweater. She was drinking a cup of tea and hulling some fresh strawberries.

“Good morning, Kathryn,” I said, attempting a smile. “Eat dirt, Chief.” I softened my comment by patting him on the butt as I walked past him toward the back door. After Boo watered the grass and we were both back in the warm kitchen, Kathryn motioned at me to take a seat.

“Let me pour you some coffee,” she said. “Or would you rather have tea?”

“Coffee, thank you. What’s cookin’, Friday?”

“My special scrambled eggs and whole wheat-pecan pancakes.”

I wrinkled my nose. I liked his scrambled eggs, full of cheese and onions and green peppers and topped with sour cream. But his whole wheat pancakes were too bumpy-lumpy, organically good for you for my taste.

“I saw that,” Gabe said, without turning around. “Don’t wrinkle your nose. My pancakes are delicious.”

I stuck my tongue out at his back, then grinned at Kathryn. “The pecans are good.”

He just laughed and said, “Go ahead, have one of your ubiquitous Pop-Tarts. At least I have some people at the table who’ll appreciate my culinary expertise.”

“Oh, quit showing off in front of your mom. Ubiquitous isn’t even the exact right word. I often run out of Pop-Tarts and happily switch to Lucky Charms or Cap’n Crunch.”

Gabe shook his head and laughed, stirring his eggs.

“Sounds like you two have been married for twenty years,” Kathryn said, smiling.

“Feels like it sometimes,” I quipped. Then I added quickly, “Though in a good way.” Though she was being good-natured, I wasn’t sure how far I could push my joking.

“Don’t believe her for a minute, Mom,” Gabe said, pouring the first set of pancakes. “I’ve tried her patience more than once or twice in the last few years.”

“I can well imagine,” she replied.

Though she said it in the most bland way, not meaning, I was certain, for her words to harbor any sort of undertone, I could see Gabe’s back stiffen.

Let it go,
I sent a mental message to my husband.

Maybe it was my psychic message or maybe his own good sense, but in a few seconds his back relaxed, and he didn’t answer her. Fortunately, Ray walked into the kitchen at that moment whistling Steve Goodman’s “The City of New Orleans.”

“Hey, Ray,” I said. “That’s one of my favorite songs. Have you ever actually ridden on that train?”

“I have,” he said, going over to Kathryn and kissing her cheek. “Good morning, Katie-do.”

Gabe turned around to look at Ray, his eyes surprised, then annoyed. It threw me too. Katie-do? I couldn’t imagine a less appropriate nickname for his very proper Midwestern mother. I imagine Gabe was thinking the same thing. I wondered briefly what his father used to call her.

“Good morning, Gabe,” Ray said evenly, not at all flustered by Gabe’s less than hospitable look. “Something smells delicious.”

Gabe murmured something and turned back to his pancakes. I glanced at Kathryn, whose face showed the same annoyance that her son’s held, though hers was directed at his broad back.

We stuck to neutral subjects while we ate, and again I noticed that Gabe never actually spoke to Ray. It was going to be a long day. Forget that, it was going to be a long holiday season. After breakfast, we coordinated plans for going out to the ranch at noon. Gabe would take Kathryn and Ray in his comfortable city-issue car; I would take the dogs in my truck. It would be a tight fit in the front seat of the truck for me, Scout and Boo in his car seat, but we’d manage.

As we dressed, I told Gabe I was going to take Boo and Scout for a walk down to Elvia and Emory’s house to try to burn off some of Boo’s puppy energy. “I’ll use the time to call Constance, see what she says about not telling me about Francie being blackballed.”

Gabe, to his credit, didn’t reiterate what he said last night about this investigation being fake. He just shrugged, his mind on something else. Should I say something to him about the way he was treating Ray? I decided to keep quiet. It would just be better if we all walked on eggshells around each other until this awkward visit was over. A big blowup was something no one needed right now, least of all my husband, who’d been on edge since his cousin died last month.

“In case you’re gone by the time I get back, see you at the ranch.” I stood on tiptoe and kissed the bottom of his chin.

On my, Boo and Scout’s very slow amble to Elvia and Emory’s house—I’d forgotten how easily puppies were distracted by every little flower or bug—I dialed Constance’s number. Fortunately for both her and me, she answered.

“Hi, Constance, it’s Benni. You never called me back.” I didn’t try to hide the irritation in my voice.

“I wasn’t feeling well last night,” she said, her high voice thin and, indeed, sick-sounding. “One of my migraines. I’m still feeling woozy. What did you want?”