Home for the Holidays (3 page)

Tyler and Ryan had come over the previous weekend and helped Gloria put up the Christmas tree and other decorations.  She fleetingly thought about turning the tree lights on but was too depressed. 

She had recently purchased a second recliner to match her own so Paul and she could sit side-by-side and watch TV together.

Tears burned the back of her eyes as she gazed longingly at “his” empty recliner.

She eased into her chair and flipped the lever on the side.  She had settled in for a full-blown pity party when she heard a knock on the back door.

“Go away,” she moaned, although she was certain whoever was on the other side of the house couldn’t possibly have heard.

Moments later, the knock came again.  This time it was louder…much louder.

“Go away!” she shouted.

The third time was all out pounding and Gloria knew whoever was banging on the door had no intention of leaving. 

She shoved the chair into the upright position, stomped to the kitchen, flipped the light and peeked through the blinds.

A freckled face, surrounded by bright red hair peered back at her.  It was Lucy.

She shook her head, “no” but Lucy was not going to take no for an answer.  She stubbornly crossed her arms and met Gloria’s gaze.

Gloria sucked in a breath and swung the door open.  “Misery doesn’t like company,” she blurted out.

Lucy barged past her friend and stepped into the kitchen.  “Hiding out in your house isn’t going to help.”

Gloria pulled out a kitchen chair and sank down.  “It isn’t going to hurt either.”

Lucy eased into the chair across from her.  “Did you see the news?”

Gloria glumly shook her head.  “Nope.  No need.  Paul was waiting for me when I got home.  He told me what happened.”

Lucy drummed her fingers on the kitchen table.  “Someone is obviously trying to pin this on him.”

Gloria lowered her chin and closed her eyes.  “Yep.”

“I think he’s going to call off wedding.  I’m moving to Florida,” she blurted out.  She hadn’t actually decided until that precise moment, that was her plan.  It seemed like a good one, though.  Although living near Liz wasn’t a rational decision.  Gloria wasn’t thinking clearly.

Lucy shot up out of her seat.  “He is?  You are?”

“No sense in sticking around here.  I’ll be the object of everyone’s pity.  ‘There’s poor Gloria.  Left at the altar by a crooked cop.’”

Gloria’s shoulders slumped.  “I can hear it now.”

“So you’re going to duck and run.” Lucy tsk-tsked.  “Gloria Rutherford, I never pegged you as a quitter.”

Maybe Gloria was a quitter.  Maybe she was tired.  Maybe both.

“I…” Gloria was about to reply when a tap on the door interrupted her.  “Let me guess.” She slid out of the chair, walked over to the window and lifted the corner of the blind.

This time, instead of one set of eyes staring back at her, there were multiple sets of eyes.  Too many to count. 

“I might as well let them in,” Gloria grumbled and reached for the door handle. 

She opened the door and stepped to the side.  In walked Margaret, Dot, Ruth and Andrea. 

“Hail, hail.  The gang is all here.” Gloria muttered.

Margaret didn’t wait for an invitation as she dragged a chair from the table, plopped down and dropped her purse on the floor.  “If you would answer your phone, maybe we wouldn’t show up unannounced,” she grumbled.

“Actually, we did announce it,” Dot pointed out.  “We left a message telling Gloria if she didn’t call back, we were coming over.”

Gloria rubbed her brow.  “I’m too depressed to talk.”

“No problem,” Ruth said.  “We’ll do the talking.” She turned to Lucy.  “She knows.”

Lucy slowly nodded.  “Yeah.  Gloria has some news.”

All eyes turned to Gloria.

“The wedding is off.  I’m moving to Florida.”

Chapter 3

The room erupted in total chaos as six voices fought to be heard over the others.

Gloria tried to get a word in, but the chatter was so loud, no one was listening.  Finally, she jumped out of the chair and held up her hands.  “Girls!”

The room grew silent and five pairs of eyes lifted.  “I appreciate you all coming here and showing moral support but my heart is broken. I don’t even know how to begin to pick up the pieces.”

She went on.  “On top of all that, how can I show my face around town, knowing that people are whispering about me behind my back?”

Lucy spoke first.  “So you’re going to hightail it and run to Florida?  To be with Liz of all people!”

It did sound crazy to Gloria, even in her altered state of mind.  Living near Liz would be like living next to an insane asylum!

Lucy could see it was sinking in.  Gloria wasn’t in a state of mind to make major life decisions, namely moving halfway across the country.

Gloria shook her head and slumped back down in the chair.  “What else can I do?” she answered in a small voice.  “Paul all but came out and said it was over.”

Dot, the voice of reason, spoke.  “He’s in the same state of shock you are.  Neither one of you should be making decisions right now.” 

Dot’s words rang true.  Of course, Paul was in shock.  She was in shock.  Their lives had been turned upside down.  “I don’t know what to do.”

Andrea piped up.  “As a very dear, very close friend likes to tell me all the time, right before she drags me into one of her escapades, ‘It’s time to get to the bottom of this.’”

Gloria grinned despite the seriousness of her situation.  Andrea was right. Dot was right.  They were all right.  She lifted her eyes and shifted her gaze as she looked at each of her friends.  “I need your help.”

Margaret rolled her eyes.  “That is why we’re here, silly!”

Ruth rubbed her hands together.  “We need to come up with a plan.”

Dot frowned.  “This might be a tough one.  How do we gain access to the inside of the police department to snoop around?”

“We should talk to Paul first,” Andrea suggested.  She glanced at Gloria’s clock above the kitchen sink.  It was already 8:30 at night.  “How about first thing in the morning?”

They agreed that overwhelming him with all of them at once might be a bad idea. Instead, they decided to send Lucy and Margaret.

“What should I do?” Gloria asked. 

She had a sudden thought.  “There is a cop hangout in Green Springs.  It’s a 24-hour diner popular with police, especially the ones who work the night shift.”  Paul’s shift. 

Andrea snapped her fingers.  “Great!  Why don’t we run by there?” She turned to Gloria.  “I’m a night owl and I doubt you’ll get any sleep.”

It was true.  The night loomed long and lonely. 

She pressed on.  “We need to get this investigation started.  There’s a wedding right around the corner!”

Gloria wasn’t convinced.  There was still a little voice whispering in her ear that maybe, just maybe, Paul was trying to get out of marrying her.  Her pride wouldn’t admit it…at least not out loud, but the terrible little voice was echoing the words, no matter how hard she tried to push them out.

“Okay,” she relented.  “You’re right.  I won’t sleep a wink tonight.”

The girls abandoned the chairs and headed for the door.

“I’ll keep my ears open,” Ruth promised.

“Me, too.” Dot added.

“What time should we show up on Paul’s doorstep in the morning?” Margaret asked.

Gloria guessed if Paul were in the same state of mind she was, he wouldn’t sleep well and would be up early.  She shrugged her shoulders.  “Whenever you want.  I’m not sure how cooperative he’ll be,” she admitted.

Lucy patted Gloria’s shoulder.  “Don’t worry about Paul.  We’ll figure something out.”

It was a good thing they were.  Gloria’s mind was still a pile of mush and she was having trouble forming a coherent thought.

Gloria was the last one out of the kitchen.  She slid her arms in her coat, grabbed her keys and then pulled the back door shut. She wiggled the knob to make sure it had locked. 

Andrea offered to drive and Gloria was relieved.  She hated driving at night.  It was hard for her to judge distance after dark.  On top of that, she was still distraught over the day’s turn of events.

She hugged each of her friends before she climbed into the passenger seat of Andrea’s pick-up.  She reached for the seatbelt, slid it across her lap and clicked the latch into the buckle. 

Andrea fastened her own seat belt and turned the key in the ignition.  “Don’t worry, Gloria.  We will get to the bottom of this.  I promise,” she vowed.

Gloria nodded.  Sudden tears burned the back of her eyes.  Her friends…and family were the most important things in the world.  There was no way she could leave Belhaven.  This was the only home she had ever known. 

Talk of moving to Florida was Gloria in panic-mode.  She was starting to calm down and rational thoughts returned. 

Her mind kicked into detective gear as she tried to remember some of the people Paul worked with.  She had met several of them during the past summer when Paul’s boss, Captain Davies, had hosted a cookout at his cabin on the shores of Crooked Pine Lake. 

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the headrest.  “Paul and I went to a cookout last summer with some of his co-workers, fellow officers.  I’m trying to remember their names.”

Several of the officers were close to Paul’s age…close to retirement age.  She was terrible with names and gave up trying to remember them.  Instead, Gloria focused on the details. 

There was a short, balding guy who teased Paul that he was about a year behind him in retirement.  He had mentioned his wife was hounding him to buy an RV so they could travel around the country.  Stan something…

Then there were two brothers.  They were still in their 30’s if Gloria had to guess.  The only reason she remembered them is they seemed standoffish when Gloria tried to make conversation.

There was one more person who stuck out.  It was a rookie cop.  He was 100% gung ho, by the book, a stickler for rules, spouting off his list of accomplishments.  He rubbed Gloria the wrong way when he told her he was glad Paul was retiring, that there needed to be a “changing of the guard” as he put it.  Gloria did remember his name.  It was Alex and the only reason she remembered was she thought his name should have been Alec, as in smart aleck.

Andrea pulled the truck into the diner parking lot.  The place was hopping at nine o’clock at night.  The majority of the vehicles were police cruisers. Gloria wondered how many times a week Paul had dropped by to talk to his fellow officers and grab a bite to eat. 

Andrea led the way inside and Gloria trailed behind.  The sign just inside the door told them to seat themselves, which Andrea promptly did…right in the middle of the area filled with cops.

Other restaurant patrons chose the other side of the restaurant but not Andrea.  Of course, that was the whole reason they were there.  To see if they could glean any information, eavesdrop on conversations, maybe chat with the waitress.

Gloria quickly studied the faces before taking a seat in the booth across from Andrea.  She reached for the menu and opened the front flap as she pretended to peruse the menu items.  She had skipped dinner and realized the last time she had eaten was at the fancy seafood restaurant earlier in the day with the girls.

It seemed so long ago now…like an eternity, not a few short hours. 

Her stomach grumbled as she read the breakfast items.  This was definitely a bacon and eggs kind of night.  The waitress arrived with two cups of coffee.  She jotted the girls’ orders on her notepad and slipped it inside her apron.

“I’ll get right on this,” she said.

Andrea thanked the girl and then leaned back in an attempt to eavesdrop on the officers seated at the booth directly behind them.  She tilted her blonde head. 

“…then when I turned around, he was face first in the toilet bowl, gulping yellow water.”

She snapped her head upright and looked at Gloria.  “Too gross.  Let’s move.” Her eyes scanned the room.  She spotted another empty booth, right next to a booth with three officers. 

She scrambled out of the seat and Gloria followed behind.  The table had been cleared but not cleaned.

Gloria reached inside her purse, pulled out a clean tissue and swiped at the crumbs on the table.

The waitress darted over when she noticed Gloria cleaning.  “You moved.”

Andrea scrunched her nose and nodded.  “Yeah.  Uh, the conversation next to us was not conducive to eating, you could say.”

The waitress leaned forward and took over for Gloria as she wiped the table with a clean, wet rag.  “Yeah.  They have some doozy conversations.  Guess it goes with the territory.”

When she finished wiping, she whirled around and made her way back behind the diner counter.

Andrea picked up the menu and focused her attention on the table behind her.  This time, she hit the jackpot.

“…is gunning for his job, anyway.  Nice, cushy office and all.  Seems like those rumors swirling around for months now were true.”

“You think Diane is gonna try and pull some strings to get this thing buried under the rug?” the cop on the other side asked.

The officer across from him shrugged.  “Stone has been after Kennedy for months now.  Who knows? Maybe he’ll be willing to scratch her back if she scratches his.”

The officer snickered and then changed the subject as they began to discuss a recent football game.

Andrea prayed Gloria hadn’t overheard the part about the Diane woman but she had.

The muscle in Gloria’s jaw twitched as she fought the urge to jump out of her seat, stomp over to the other booth and demand to know who Diane Stone was.  “
Who
is Diane Stone?” she hissed as she leaned forward. 

“This is hearsay,” Andrea attempted to calm Gloria, whose face was a mask of fury.  Her poor friend had had to endure every kind emotion.  Joy, heartbreak, pain, fury…all in the same day.

Gloria reached for her phone.  “Maybe it’s time to find out.”

Andrea reached across the table and put her hand on Gloria’s arm.  “I know you’re angry and hurt.  Paul may be completely innocent.  It sounds like he turned this woman down,” she pointed out.