Goose in the Pond (29 page)

“DON’T FORGET TO come down and look at some pictures,” Gabe said the next morning. “It’s probably a waste of time, but you never know.”

I stuck a slice of sourdough bread in the toaster. “Before I do anything I need to rent a car.”

He turned his head away from his glass of orange juice to look at me. His face held his autocratic-ruler expression. “I told you to get your truck back from Sam.”

“He has to get to work.”

“His problem.”

I turned my back to him and concentrated on my toasting bread. This morning there was no way I was getting pulled into an argument about Sam, who had wisely left before Gabe woke up. The air vibrated as we nonverbally struggled for control. His fatigue was deeper than I realized; he conceded much quicker than usual.

“I have to get down to the office,” he said, tossing his plastic glass into the sink with a clatter. “Let me see what I can do about a car.”

“I need to leave by ten o’clock.” I smiled sweetly at him.

“I’m only doing this because I’m too tired to argue.”

“You are a wonderful husband,” I said, not flaunting my win.

With his forefinger, he carefully traced the area underneath my swollen black eye. “People are going to think I beat you,” he said softly.

“Especially after they read the Tattler.”

He drew his hand back, his eyes full of pain.

I grabbed his hand, regretting my flippant teasing. “I was just kidding. No one would ever think that about you.”

The look on his face said he didn’t believe me.

“Friday, anyone who even suggests you wailed the tar outta me gets this.” I brandished a fist at him.

That made him laugh. He kissed my clenched fist.

“Don’t forget my speech at six o’clock,” I said, handing him his briefcase.

I was spreading blackberry jam on my toast when Rita walked in.

“What happened to you?” she exclaimed. Before I could open my mouth, she promptly started telling me about her date with Ash. “Ash is so much fun. He
always
has money and is not afraid to spend it. It’s nice to be treated like a lady for a change.” She grabbed the jam-covered toast I’d just put on a plate and poured herself a cup of coffee. “Good kisser, too.”

“All that practice,” I muttered, taking another slice of bread out of the bag and dropping it in the toaster.

“I know he’s a runaround, Benni,” she said, sipping her coffee, “but at least he’s up-front about it. I really respect that.”

There was no way I would even attempt to explain to her that a man being honest about the fact that he cheats on you is not exactly a virtue. I pulled my bread out of the toaster, catching a glimpse of my face in the appliance’s shiny exterior. My purple, green, and yellow eye looked like a $1.99 Mardi Gras mask. I let out a soft groan.

“I’ve got some makeup that would cover that right up,” Rita said.

I sighed. “Bring it on, then. I’ve got a speech to make tonight and I don’t want to scare the little kids.”

“Where’s Dove?” I asked when she returned with her tackle box of cosmetics. She pulled out a tube of beige goop and started smearing it on my face.

Rita shrugged, unconcerned. “She gets up so dang early. Gramma Garnet left a message this morning after Dove left. I erased it.”

“Smart move,” I replied, impressed with her cunning. I flinched when she blended the goop over my face with a cosmetic sponge “Ow, watch it.”

“Hush, you know what they say. Sometimes looking beautiful hurts,” she said. “So, what door did you run into?”

I told her the story as she finished with my skin, and we wrangled over whether iridescent pink eye shadow would or wouldn’t draw people’s eyes away from my injury (it would, but I’d rather have people gossiping about my black eye than my lack of makeup sense).

“Heavens,” she said, her eyes wide. “What a close call.”

“You’re telling me.” I inspected her work in the plastic makeup mirror she handed me. I had to give Rita credit for expertise in one area. Except for the swelling, the rainbow bruises were almost hidden.

“Oh, my, he could of slashed your face,” she said. “You would of had a scar!” Her round little mouth gaped in horror.

“Rita, I could have been dead.”

She blinked. “Oh, well, that, too.”

While dressing, I contemplated who might have been involved in the attack on me and Sam last night. Gabe was right; anyone could have arranged it. At any time. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what Ash was doing last night around the time Sam, Gabe’s truck, and I were being bashed around. I quickly changed into new black jeans, a maroon silk cowboy shirt, and maroon Justin boots.

In the living room, Rita was lounging on the sofa painting her nails with a gruesome shade of reddish black.

“Vampire night at McClintock’s Saloon?” I inquired.

She held out her hand and studied it. “It’s the latest color. I had to wait three weeks before I could get a bottle.”

I paused, trying to make up my mind about whether I should do this, then ignoring the reprimanding voice inside me, asked, “So, where exactly did you and Ash go last night?”

I listened to her ramble about this bar and that bar, glancing at my watch impatiently. “Rita, where were you all around eight o’clock?”

She flipped her hair out of her face and looked bemused. “Heavens, I didn’t keep track of the time. We ate right after he did his story, then we went to a couple more places to listen to music.” She carefully painted a thumbnail. “Why?”

“No reason.” It was a pointless question. If Ash had arranged it, he’d done it before his date with Rita. I grabbed my leather backpack from the coffee table and started out the door before it occurred to me that I had no vehicle. I was picking up the phone to call Avis when a police car pulled up in our driveway. It was followed by a bright red Ford Taurus. Elvia’s brother Miguel climbed out of the Taurus just as I stepped out on the front porch.

“Chief sent this over.” He handed me the rental-car keys. “Heard you and Sam took a beating last night. You don’t look too bad.”

“My cousin Rita did the beauty bit on me this morning so I wouldn’t scare too many people. Has anyone heard anything about the people who attacked us?”

Miguel crossed his arms over his wide chest, his muscular legs spread wide. “We’ll probably never find them. Scumbags like that are a dime a dozen.”

“That’s what Gabe said. He wants me to come down to the station and look through some pictures anyway.”

“Sam already dropped by this morning, and he didn’t find squat.”

“Then I doubt I will either.”

“The chief’s got extra patrols going by the folk-art museum today, and we’ll be cruising by your house a lot. He’s real jumpy.”

“I know.” I glanced over at the bright red Taurus. “Is that why he rented such a bright car so you all couldn’t lose me?”

Miguel just grinned. “You keep your eyes open, Benni.”

“I will. At least the good one anyway.”

After a few minutes of getting used to the bells and whistles of an unfamiliar car, I drove to the museum. D-Daddy’s commanding voice could be heard the minute I stepped out of the car. I waved at him across the parking lot and headed straight for our small kitchen. Someone had been astute enough to bring another coffeemaker, and there were two full pots. I poured a cup and hightailed it to my office. There was no doubt that people would be taking numbers today and waiting in line for me to deal with some horrible catastrophe. Before that line started forming, I needed to inhale a few more ounces of caffeine.

On top of my desk lay a copy of the
Freedom Press
. I wondered if it was friend or foe who left it. I’d checked the
Tribune
on my way in, and the attack on me and Sam wasn’t in it. Apparently we’d been mugged too late to make the Friday-morning edition. Maybe, I thought optimistically, they’ll forget about it by Saturday. Yeah, right. I compulsively turned to the Tattler page, cringing inwardly when I read the sarcastic words about Gabe and me. Hearing about it was bad enough, but to actually see it in print gave it a potent reality that tasted like a mouthful of sour milk. I thumbed through the rest of the paper, which also carried a flattering article about the storytelling festival and praise for the number of community-oriented activities the museum had sponsored in the last year.

But my thoughts kept compulsively returning to the Tattler column. Where
was
that last column written by Nora? What was in it? I agreed with Will Henry about one thing. It had to be about the storytellers, and so that narrowed down, in my mind, the suspects in her murder. But there was still Roy to consider. I couldn’t imagine what it must have felt like to be killed by someone with whom you’d once made love. I shivered and threw the paper in my trash can. This whole thing reminded me of something a minister once said that always stuck in my mind—that the line between hate and love is as thin as a strand of baby’s hair. That the people who profess to hate the most are the ones peering the most furtively over their shoulder, the ones desiring love in the most basic way. Hatred, he contended, was much easier to change to love than indifference was.

Was that the true story of Roy and Nora? Was their hate just one step away from turning back into love? Had it been on the verge of doing just that? If that was true, I knew one person who would have been devastated. But would Grace be crushed enough to kill? To kill the object of love in hopes of killing the love? I didn’t want to think that about my new friend, but she was a passionate woman, a woman who never did things halfway. I leaned back in my chair and pressed my warm mug of coffee against my temple.

“Headache?” Evangeline asked as she walked through my open door. She was dressed in a long, gauzy dress the color of celery. Tiny silver stars embossed in the fabric caught the light when she moved. Her black hair was piled high in a chignon with curly tendrils trailing down. Her only jewelry was a large silver pendant depicting a Pueblo storyteller doll.

I set the mug down and smiled. “Not yet, but I’m sure I’ll have one before the night is over.”

“Let’s at least make an attempt to be optimistic,
’tite amie
.” She bent close to look at my shiner. “I heard you saved your stepson single-handedly last night. A real Clint Eastwood rescue.”

“It was probably more along the lines of Lucy Ricardo. Some punks were vandalizing Gabe’s truck, Sam rushed in, and one of them went at him with a knife. All I did was grab the guy around the waist and hang on.” I watched her face as I told the story, a small part of me wondering if she could have hired those guys. I remembered that she’d once worked at Trigger’s, a local cowboy and oil-field workers’ bar on the rough side of town and probably knew guys who would do anything for the right price. Yes, she could have, but why? I shook my head in disgust at my growing cynical nature. Next thing I knew I’d be suspecting Aunt Garnet of being involved.

Her face remained sympathetic. “Scary. How did Gabe take it?”

“Take a guess. He’s absolutely furious. What’s worse is it caused another argument between him and Sam. One I’m not sure is going to be easily mended. He lost his temper and really let Sam have it, and Sam responded predictably. I can’t picture either one giving in this time.”

“Bon chien retient de race,”
she said, holding a palm up.

I raised my eyebrows in question.

Her musical voice was low with amusement. “Like father, like son.”

“I’ll drink to that.” I held up my coffee mug. “I’d like to say you oughta see the other guy, but unless my teeth managed to break through his cotton sleeve, Sam and I got the worse of it.”

“You bit him?” She gave a delighted laugh. “Good goin’, girl.”

“Are you all ready for your first session tonight?”

“All set. I’ll be taking the stage right after your welcoming speech.”

“My very short welcoming speech. Just the thought of people staring at me makes me want to hide under the bed. I just hope my cousin Rita’s makeup job holds up.”

“You know, there’s this great makeup that covers bruises like a dream. It’s called Dermablend. It’ll cover anything.”

“I’ll look for it. I have no idea how long this shiner will last.”

“About a—” She stopped abruptly. I waited for her to continue. She pulled at a loose strand of hair and gave a glittery laugh. “You can get Dermablend in any department store. I use it for stage makeup. Kind of an old thespian’s trick. Like Vaseline on the teeth. Well, gotta go. I promised Dolores I’d hear her story one more time. She’s as nervous as a wild turkey about her solo appearance tonight. Wait’ll you see her costume. It’s out of this world.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

I watched her walk out, mulling over our conversation. Especially the point where she paused—something Gabe said he always looked for when interrogating someone—that moment of hesitation. Something she’d said triggered a memory. I closed my eyes and willed the thought to form. After a few minutes it came to me. A segment on a television-magazine show about abused women disappearing into the underground. Some had children they were protecting, some were just trying to start a new life. All had the experience of being battered, some almost to death. They were sitting in a circle discussing with a frightening dispassion the different methods they used to cover up the marks left from their beatings.

“Dermablend’s great,” one had said. “They got a leg makeup that almost makes the marks disappear.” Was that why Evangeline and her father were here in San Celina? Was she hiding from an abusive husband? If Nora was mean enough to reveal that, it might be reason enough for Evangeline . . . or D-Daddy to kill her.

I unlocked the file cabinet that held the co-op members’ applications for admittance. Our criteria weren’t strict, but since we did have people on the premises working with dangerous equipment, we were required to carry liability insurance as well as a next of kin to notify in case of emergency. That meant we had to keep some kind of records. I pulled out her file, closing my office door before settling down to read.

In her large, curvy handwriting was her name, address, next of kin, doctor’s name and address, the type of art she worked on, and a paragraph telling her artistic goals and intentions. We really didn’t ask much information of our prospective co-op members. What we cared about most was their dedication to their art, their ability to work within the boundaries of the co-op, and willingness to lend a hand in our mostly volunteer organization.