If Onions Could Spring Leeks (7 page)

For a short time, I'd thought it was disloyal of my brother to date the woman who'd made my life so miserable during our growing-up years. But then I'd watched them together and even I couldn't deny that they were a good couple. However, their “coupling” still got under my skin.

“Betts, how ya doin', sis'?” Teddy said as he stood and gave me a hug.

“I'm fine. That's quite a greeting.” I hugged back with almost as much enthusiasm as he'd put into it.

“It's good to see you,” he said. “I heard about Derek and I'm sorry.”

I looked into his eyes. Nope, he didn't know I'd been hit over the head either. So far, so good on keeping that secret.

“Thanks. I'm sorry, too. Not a good way to go.”

“Hi, Betts,” Opie said from the table. I would have thought
it phony and suspicious if she'd gotten up to hug me. She knew that.

“Opie, how are you?”

“Well. You? Sorry about what you went through yesterday.” Opie looked good. She was a pretty woman anyway; curvy and blond. She typically wore a thick coat of makeup, but lately that had been mellower. She looked very happy and so did Teddy.

Who was I to judge who my brother dated?

“Thanks. I'm fine.”

“Come sit and have some of your mother's wonderful casserole,” Opie said, sincerity lining her words. I pushed away the encroaching suspicion.

I pulled up a chair and hurriedly scooped out some of the casserole and plopped it onto a plate.

“I bet it was one of Derek's wives,” Opie said after I'd had a bite or two. I was sitting right next to her, but she leaned a little closer to me.

“Which one?” I said around the egg, ham, and potato concoction that was one of mom's few recipes. She wasn't the best cook, but she tried. And Dad hadn't gotten his mother's cooking abilities, so Teddy and I had always enjoyed going to Gram's house for meals, which is where I first learned my cooking skills and deep appreciation for her food and cooking methods.

“How many have there been?” Mom asked.

Teddy fell into thought and started ticking off his fingers. “I think he was married five times.”

“Five?” Mom said. “I knew he'd been married a lot, but how is five even possible?”

“Gram was married a couple,” Teddy said, as if that was an equal amount.

“But she quit doing all that silliness after two,” Mom said.

I wanted to say,
“How in the world did Derek find five women who wanted to marry him?”
That would have been extremely rude and uncalled for, but I still wondered.

I knew he'd been married more than once, but five times? He was not a nice enough man to participate in a decent conversation from all I could tell. How did five women get past that?

“Do you know who they all were?” I asked Teddy.

“Sure, I dated one after they divorced. She was lots older than me.” He cringed the second after he said it.

“It's fine, Teds, I know you've dated almost everyone who has spent any time being single, even older women. Quit worrying about that stuff,” Opie said.

I was struck silent with my mouth slightly agape. It was a good thing I'd already swallowed the bite of casserole. There was nothing phony in Opie's voice. She meant exactly what she said. Where was jealous, overly-involved Opie?

“Yeah, but I've never been as happy with anyone as I am with you,” Teddy said.

I put the fork on my plate. If they kissed, I was going to have to go out to the garage and help my dad learn how to re-glaze the haunted mirror.

“So true,” Opie said with satisfaction.

“Anyway,” I said. “Who were the wives?”

“I know their first names and where they work, I think,” Teddy said. “Let's see, Wendy from the nail shop; Gina from the post office; Ridley, Doc's nurse; Bonnie, the attorney; and Rachel, who works at the bank.”

“Ridley, the nurse?” I said. “Petite, brown curly hair?”

“That's the one. She's the one I went out on a date with. You know her?”

“I think I remember her from when I was in there for a cold or something. When were they married?” Just in time I stopped myself from telling them that I'd seen Ridley the day before, when I'd been looked at for a head injury. I thought I remembered her being upset. If she'd been married to Derek and even if their divorced had been less than amicable, she might have been upset about his murder.

“She was his third wife.”

“Do you remember when they were together?” I said.

“Mid-two-thousands some time. 2004, 2005 maybe.”

“What was she like on the date?” I said.

Teddy shrugged. “Oddly, she spent most of it talking about Derek and his mother and what a bizarre relationship they had.”

That comment garnered everyone's attention.

“I know that Lynn is a complainer and I know that Derek always kowtowed to her, but is there more?” Mom asked.

Teddy bit at the inside of his cheek as he fell into thought again. “Ridley said that Derek answered his phone every time his mother called. No matter when or what it was, if she needed him, he'd go help her. This happened at all hours for all things.”

“I don't understand, Teddy,” I said. “If Lynn was like that with Derek, who didn't seem all that personable anyway, why were so many women interested in marrying him?”

“It baffles the mind, doesn't it?” Opie said. “But I might have some insight into that.”

Opie liked the spotlight and she'd just said the right words to get it to shine in her direction.

“Go ahead.”

“Derek dated lots of girls, me included.” Opie smiled at Teddy.

“Of course he did,” Teddy said. “Who wouldn't want to date you?”

Please.

Opie laughed a little. “Well, we only went out on one date. There was no spark. At all. But the date was nice. He was nice. Well, he wasn't
not
nice, you know. Anyway, he was normally so quiet and withdrawn, but when you were with him one-on-one, without his mom, it was like he was
almost
clever and funny. It was like he was saving that part of his personality just for that date and it just never quite blossomed. Perhaps all those silly women thought they could change him.”

I looked at Opie and then at my previously love-'em-and-leave-'em brother and then back at Opie. I sensed that even my mom was thinking pot/kettle/black, but neither of us commented.

“Did his mother call during the date?” I asked.

“No, but he did check his phone a couple times. Not rudely, but casually. I didn't know anything about his attention to his mom until just now, but I bet he was looking for her call. Though, I can't know anything for sure.”

My appetite had returned so I took another bite and thought as I chewed. There had to be more. Good dates don't always make for good marriages. And if he dated any of them long enough and Lynn really was that demanding, there was no way he could have hidden it through an entire courtship.

Would Ridley talk to me? Girl to girl. She and I didn't know each other but perhaps we'd bonded over my good vitals. It might be worth a shot.

Of course, Derek's murder might not have one thing to do with the fact that he'd been married to five women. I didn't know all that he did with his days. I knew he worked as a handyman, but surely there was nothing in the handyman business what could get someone killed. But anything was possible.

When Dad came in from the garage without the mirror, our conversation turned to things other than Derek Rowlett and his murder. It was much more interesting to talk about Mom's latest muscle car and how she restored the engine in two days flat; a new record.

I left not too much later. It didn't occur to me at the time that Opie and I had spent over an hour together and neither of us had insulted the other one. If I thought about it, I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

All summer long, Jake had had them right where he wanted them. His performances captured his audiences. They loved him. He was such an appealing character, both in real life and in his actor/poet's persona. He was short, but handsome in ways that reminded people of dashing heroes from classic movies. His deep voice and the poems he wrote along with his fake sheriff character mesmerized our tourists every year. He was one of the bigger draws in town, and his stellar reputation only continued to grow.

He had most recently dated a woman he'd met when the town hosted a cowboy poetry convention in April. He and Esther were still seeing each other, but Jake was never one to discuss his dating life all that much, even with me. I liked Esther and I liked how happy she seemed to make Jake, but she lived in Kansas City. The trip between Broken Rope and
Kansas City wasn't terrible, but I knew the almost four-hour drive each way wasn't always a welcome adventure.

Despite his mostly quiet personal life, every year Jake gained a faithful following of women of all ages who thought he was too adorable not to flirt with. It was mostly harmless, but there were always a few who were more than serious about wanting to get to know him better. I thought he handled those moments so well—friendly, but clear that he wasn't interested in any future rendezvous with transitory visitors.

He was in the middle of one of the more harmless moments when I entered his fake sheriff's office. The show was over, the crowd had cleared, but a small group of female tourists was hanging around, hoping to get Jake to join them for coffee.

“Thank you, ladies, but my appointment is here. Hello, Betts,” he said with a smile.

“Jake, good to see you,” I said. “Thanks for fitting me into your schedule.”

Each in the group of females gave me a once-over and then tried to get Jake to commit to something later.

“Too busy, but I sure appreciate the invitation,” he said. “Hope you all enjoy your time in Broken Rope. You'll find a great reenactment of a gun battle just down the way. I think it starts in about ten minutes. I've heard we've got a particularly large crop of handsome cowboys in the gun battles this year,” he said.

He'd mentioned the right thing. The young women left, ignoring me and smiling once more at Jake as they exited.

“Having fun?” I said when it was just the two of us.

“Always,” he said waving off the moment. “How are you feeling?”

“Almost as good as new. I slept so much that I'm a little tired, but I'll recover soon enough.”

“Good. You look great.” He inspected my eyes and put his hand to my forehead. “Yep, you're fine. I found some pictures of train stations, or depots as some of them are called. You up for looking at them?”

“Definitely.”

“Come on back and we'll see if we can figure out what's going on.”

Jake led the way to his back archive room. The room with tall ceilings and shelf-filled walls was fitted with temperature and humidity controls that kept all his archived materials safe from environmental harm. The shelves were stacked with folders full of items pertinent to Broken Rope history. The folders were made of a special plastic created for document archives. Regular old plastic wasn't good enough. I wasn't sure how much money Jake had spent on his room, but he could afford it, whatever it was. He was rich; a self-made millionaire who'd dropped out of college and made his fortune via the stock market. He had a gift. He often told me he'd invest my money for me and make me rich, too, but I didn't think money and friendship mixed well. Besides, I'd invested in a few stocks on my own and had never once made a cent; I didn't want to jinx his good run.

A big table filled the middle of the room. It was illuminated by an old Broken Rope saloon chandelier, once lit with candles, now wired for electricity. One corner of the table currently held a couple of small stacks of what I guessed were pictures of old train stations.

“You do know that our station was one of the more amazing stops through the middle of the country,” he said after he closed the door behind us.

“You've mentioned that before,” I said.

“It was grand,” he continued as he walked around to the far corner of the table. “It was a two-story building, with the ticket counter and some sort of food vending on the bottom level. There was a barbershop and a beauty salon on the top floor. Shoe shining—you know, all the good stuff from back in the day.”

“Was a train station an odd place for such things at that time?”

Jake shrugged. “Usually, train stations around here, in the country, were just train stations, but the mayor of Broken Rope wanted to do something spectacular, something that would make Broken Rope stand out for much more than all the criminal activity.”

“Did it work?”

“I'm not sure.” Jake shrugged. “I haven't had a chance to really dig deep. I haven't found any articles regarding the popularity of the station or its appeal. But of the station pictures I've found so far, Broken Rope's architecture, the building, was definitely the most interesting.”

“We should have kept it around,” I said. “It would have made a good tourist stop.”

“The town's layout changed when passenger train travel stopped being so popular. At the time, no one knew that the town would become what it has become, and trains don't travel through here anymore. It might someday be a good idea to re-create all that, though probably not at the end of your street. We'd need a new location.” Jake pulled the first few pictures off the pile. “Here, look at these.”

The pictures were all black and white, or perhaps sepia
would be a better description. The building in the first one was definitely the one I'd seen during Robert's visit.

“That's it, the Broken Rope station. I think this was all red,” I said as I pointed to the darker tones.

“Really? Oh, that's great to know. What else do you remember?”

“The shutters were white. Not off-white, but bright white. The building that I visited was clean, almost as if it was brand new.”

“What year was it?”

“I can tell you the exact day Grace thought it was. August 16, 1888.”

“Good to know.” Jake wrote the date on a piece of scratch paper.

“Something's different, though.” I inspected one of the pictures.

“What?” Jake inspected it, too.

“I'm not sure. It's like it's
almost
the building, but it's a little off.”

“Could that just be you? Your memory or the fact that it was part of a ghost visit?”

“Probably,” I said. “No, this is the one. Must be. It's too close not to be.”

“All right. Take a look at these. One of them might be the other station.”

Jake pulled out three more pictures, one at a time. “This one is from Vicksburg, Mississippi. I don't know if she was from anywhere near Vicksburg, but it's the only Mississippi station picture I've found so far.” He pointed to the next one. “This one is from Little Rock; she would have gone through
there to get to Broken Rope from Mississippi. And, this one is from Frankland, Missouri, right down the road from us—well, by a couple hours; she might have gone through there, too. These are the only pictures I've been able to find so far, but I'm still working on it.”

The three stations were all very different. The Vicksburg station was impressive, wider than the Broken Rope station, two stories with a round balcony coming out from the middle of the top floor.

“Not this one,” I said as I pointed at the Vicksburg station. “It's beautiful.”

The Little Rock station was also impressive. It wasn't wide, but it stood two stories tall with a long platform and what looked like loading docks extending backwards away from the main building.

“No, this isn't it.” I pointed at the Little Rock picture.

The Frankland station might have been the one, but it was difficult to tell from the picture. It was a side view with the building barely visible. I could see it was one story and fairly simple, but not much more than that.

“I don't know, Jake, this might be it. It's the closest of these three, that's for sure, but I just don't know. Any other angles?”

“Not yet, but I'll keep looking. That's interesting to note, though,” Jake said. “If this is the station and if Grace was killed here, that means she might not have made it to Broken Rope. On her route, Frankland would have been before Broken Rope.”

I picked up the picture and looked even closer. Finally, I shrugged.

“I just can't be sure. I should have paid better attention to the buildings. Sorry.”

“I can keep looking. I'll find some more shots of the Frankland station.”

“Thank you.”

The air in the room suddenly changed, and became scented—to me at least.

“Uh-oh, I think we have a visitor,” I said as I looked around for Grace. Her soft floral aroma was unmistakable even after only one previous sniff.

“Let me grab my camera,” Jake said as he hurried to his desk. “It might not be fixed, but I want to give it a try.”

The floral scent suddenly mixed with the musky scent of Robert Findlay. The smells were good together and I wished Jake could smell them, too.

“I think we're getting two,” I said.

Across the room and on the other side of the table, Robert and Grace did appear, both of them in the almost transparent forms that went along with so much light. They were briefly disoriented, but soon they noticed me and Jake, and then they noticed each other.

“This is going to be interesting,” I said to Jake. “Let me listen to them, and I'll interpret later if your camera isn't working.”

“Deal,” Jake said as he started the camera and pointed it at the space I was watching.

“Grace, Grace, is that really you?” Robert said as he looked at her, his eyes wide, unbelieving and surprised. I wondered if a long-dead man could go into shock.

“Robert! Yes, my love, it is me, it is.” She looked around, at me with knitted eyebrows, and then back at Robert. “I don't know where we are, but I have met that woman. Do you know where we are?”

“You're both dead,” I said, offering a quick summary of our previous conversations. They'd catch up. “You're the ghosts of your former selves and you're back in Broken Rope. My name is Betts, this is Jake. He can't see you or hear you but I can. We're all in the back of his building.”

“Yes, I remember now,” Grace said. “But Robert is here, too.”

“I am, dear, sweet Grace.”

They moved closer together and then reached for each other.

“Uh, that might not turn out like you expect,” I said. “You might not actually be able to feel each other. I'm not really sure.”

They both hesitated and then glanced down at their own hands. They looked up at each other in tandem and smiled.

“Grace.”

“Robert.”

They reached and they touched but it would be impossible to understand what they were or weren't feeling.

“Okay?” I said.

They didn't waste another moment before their ghostly forms came together in a kiss. Typically, I wasn't all that interested in watching people kiss each other, but I was fascinated by Grace and Robert and their almost transparent lips touching.

“They're kissing,” I said to Jake.

“Nice.”

“It's lovely,” I said as I looked at him. I looked back at the couple, “but a little different. Ghost kissing.”

“Oh, I see. Well, when you're kissing Jerome, there's only one ghost involved. I have pictures and it didn't seem all that different to me.”

“Right.”

“Grace, I waited for you. I waited forever,” Robert said when they disengaged.

“And I came to you,” Grace said. “At least I was on my way. But something happened, Robert.”

“Betts says you were murdered. Who killed you, Grace?”

“I don't know.” Grace surprised me with a nervous laugh. “What good would it do to know at this point, Robert? We're here, we're together. Even if we don't stay together, we have this moment.”

“Well,” I interrupted, “it would maybe offer you a little peace. I don't know how unsettled you feel, but it might not hurt to find out more details, if it's even possible. It will be pretty hard to get answers at this point. It's been a long time.” I didn't bring up Gram's dreams or the sketch artist. Not yet.

“Where in the world would we begin?” Grace asked.

I shrugged. “How about right now and with a few questions? Answer whatever you can. Just do your best.”

“All right,” Grace said. Robert nodded when she looked at him.

But there was something in that nod. I barely caught it, but I was sure I saw some hesitation, something that made Robert less than thrilled about answering questions. So, naturally, I started with him.

“Robert, do you have a last memory of Grace?” I asked.