Something Borrowed, Something Bleu (5 page)

The front door was
unlocked when I got home, but no one seemed to be around. I’d just settled at the kitchen table with a big fat sandwich—sourdough piled with shaved turkey, Muenster, tomato, cucumber, and avocado, all dripping with spicy chipotle mayonnaise—when I heard a sound downstairs. Curious, I abandoned my sandwich and slipped down to the basement, expecting to find Kitty Wampus getting into something yet again. Abyssinians were infamous for being able to open doors and drawers, and his reputation was worse than most.
Instead, I found my father had turned into a pretzel.
“What on earth?” I walked into the rec room and flopped onto the old brown sofa. Many an hour of my youth had been spent lounging there, watching television or gabbing for hours with my friends. It still smelled faintly of our old black lab, long gone to his happy hunting grounds.
Slowly Dad returned to a recognizably human shape. He smiled at me. “Scorpion pose.” Standing now, he raised his arms straight up and bent at the waist, touching his palms to the floor. “Intense forward bend. Try it.”
I shook my head. “Huh uh. My back hurts just watching you.”
Unfolding again, he rolled his shoulders back and took a deep, audible breath. “Okay.”
“Um, Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“You all right?”
His gray shorts hung loosely on him, but he had always had a runner’s physique. Or, more accurately, a bicyclist’s physique. Pure ectomorph. His bare chest sprouted gray hair, but was defined by lean muscle.
He sat cross-legged on the floor. “I’m fine.”
I chewed on my lip and considered him. “You seem different.”
His head dipped forward. “Maybe.”
“Are you taking any medication?”
His head tipped to the side.
“Tranquilizers?”
He laughed. “Is that what you’re worried about? No, nothing like that.”
I drew my legs under me on the sofa. “High on life, huh.”
“Sort of. You know how much I used to ride my bike?”
I nodded. “Sometimes for hours.”
“Right. Well, it kept me sane. It really did. Then my knees started giving me fits, and I couldn’t ride as hard as I liked. I was miserable. And by that I mean not only was I miserable, I was difficult to be around.”
“I bet.” I wasn’t trying to be mean, but my dad was an intense guy. The bike riding had definitely bled off some of his energy, and I could only imagine how cranky he got after he had to cut back.
His lips twitched. “Right. Well, Anna Belle was worried. I think she was a little sick of putting up with me, too. She came up with the idea of trying yoga. I did, and it really helped. My knees are much stronger, and it turned out I loved it. As a result, I started looking into some other Eastern practices. Now, believe it or not, I meditate daily.”
“I’m actually a little jealous. I’ve tried to meditate—guess I don’t have the patience. The closest I get to that state of mind is when I’m spinning or doing something soothing and repetitive like wrapping soap.”
“There’s a lot to be said for that.” He hesitated, then, “I’ve been studying Buddhism lately, too.”
“Really?” I laughed. No wonder Anna Belle had had that look on her face when she’d told me Dad was experimenting. “Doesn’t that kind of go against the whole agnostic thing?”
“Less than you’d think. The meditation clears my mind, and what I’ve learned so far has given me a whole new perspective on life.”
“And Anna Belle approves.”
“She sees the results. I’m mellow as a cello and fit as a fiddle.”
I rolled my eyes and stood up. “Well, that’s good enough for me.”
“You can come join me any time you want to, you know. I spend a couple hours a day down here rearranging my carcass or meditating.”
“Thanks. I’ll think about it.” I turned to go.
“Did you find out anything about Bobby Lee’s letter?”
I whirled back to face him. “You know about that?”
He smiled.
“Anna Belle didn’t want me to tell you about it,” I said. “For the record, I disagreed with her.”
“It’s okay. She’s afraid I won’t want her to pursue it, but I don’t feel that way at all.”
“So you know what the letter says?”
“I might have happened across it.”
Did Dad know about the hidey holes in my mother’s den? I couldn’t quite bring myself to ask him. Instead, I leaned against the door frame. “So what do you think?”
He took a deep breath. “I think my son had some problems with depression. I think he had some problems with his girlfriend. I think he was searching for some big answers, and then I think he did something he was ashamed of. Something he thought his mother and I would condemn him for. I think it all got to be too much for him to handle.”
My hand crept to my mouth, and I found myself looking at my father through a watery veil.
He continued. “I also think his sister, who takes after her investigative-journalist old man, is going to get to the bottom of what happened. I just hope in the end your mother will be able to move on from the self-imposed limbo she’s been living in for the last eighteen years.”
I blinked, and felt wetness splash down my cheek. I swiped at it with the back of my hand. “I’ll do my best. I promise.”
His eyes radiated warmth. “Of course you will, kiddo. That’s all she wants. And if there isn’t an answer, there isn’t an answer. That’s okay, too.” He closed his eyes, and I got the impression I’d been dismissed.
Softly, I left the room.
There was an answer. I just knew it. And I’d find it.

_____

Kitty Wampus was nowhere in sight when I returned to the kitchen, but he’d eaten all the turkey and cheese out of my beautiful sandwich and dragged the rest halfway across the table. No doubt he’d bee-lined out the cat door and was dozing under the lilacs in the backyard, fat and happy. My stomach growled as I surveyed the mess.
“Stupid beast,” I muttered, gathering what was left of my lunch and dumping it in the garbage. “Evil creature. I hope you get heartburn from that spicy mayonnaise.”
A sense of restlessness joined my hunger. The remainder of the afternoon stretched ahead; I might as well make use of it. I still had the letter, and plenty of questions to go with it.
Time to find the people who could give me some answers—and maybe hit a drive-through on the way. A quick look at the phone book gave me the information I needed.
First stop: a guacamole cheeseburger. I scarfed it down as I drove, licking the sauce oozing out around the edges before it could splatter onto my lap.
I didn’t know whether the Atwoods were retired or not, but it seemed worth taking the chance that one or both of them would be home. I knew the general area where they lived, a few miles northwest of town, near the tiny town of Bellevue. The Subaru turned that direction almost of its own volition.
As I drove and chewed, I formulated what to say.

Tabby’s parents lived in
a pale blue, ranch-style home set near County Road 54E. Two llamas peered out from the other side of a wire fence, apparently companions to the old sway-backed horse in the far corner that turned his head to watch my progress down their driveway. The yard was a riot of bright zinnias and purple coneflowers, punctuated by explosions of indigo Russian sage. I got out of the car and inhaled the heat, blinking in the bright sunlight.
An enormous gray cat ambled around the corner. It walked right up and rubbed against my bare leg. I reached down to scritch it behind the ears and wild rumbling erupted deep in its chest.
“Mrow!”
“Mrow to you, too,” I murmured, then stood and braced myself for what I was about to do.
Celeste Atwood opened the door almost immediately, so I suspected she’d heard me get out of the car and had watched from behind the gauzy curtains as the cat greeted me. She was sun-faded and weary-looking. Thick glasses with tortoise-shell frames magnified her ash-brown eyes. A yellow camp shirt and white slacks hung on her thin frame. Her smile was small, uncertain.
“Hi. Are you Celeste?”
“I sure am.”
“My name is Sophie Mae Reynolds. I know your daughter, Tabby.”
She waited, an expectant look on her face.
“Could I ask you a few questions?”
Puzzlement took over. “What kind of questions?”
I hesitated, then took the plunge. “I’m Bobby Lee Watson’s sister. My family recently came into some information about what happened back … when he …” I didn’t finish.
Alertness sparked in her gaze, mingled with alarm. For a long moment neither of us spoke, the air between us thick with the past. Then she pushed open the old screen door with a creak.
“Come in.”
Inside, ostriches were everywhere.
Everywhere
. Glass ones, ceramic ones, stuffed, stone, carved, big, little, anatomically accurate, fantastical, green, pink, orange—every color of the rainbow and then some. They covered every surface, sat on the sofa and chairs, and paintings of long-necked birds populated the walls.
“You must like ostriches,” I said. Nothing like stating the obvious, Sophie Mae.
“I have a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen.”
I followed her into a bright yellow-and-orange kitchen. A floor fan in the corner whirred back and forth. The dish towel had an ostrich on it. The napkin holder was a carved wooden ostrich. Celeste poured hot coffee into mugs with purple ostriches sporting cowboy hats and lariats on them.
“Thanks.” I raised the mug. The balloon coming out of the bird’s mouth read, “Slow up there, Pardner!”
Celeste got right to the point. “What do you want?”
I was so distracted by the total ostrich weirdness that it took me a moment to regroup. With an effort, I turned my attention to the matter I’d come to ask her about.
“I don’t suppose your husband is around,” I said. It made more sense to talk to both of them at the same time if possible.
“He’s dead.”
Oh, God. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“That’s okay. It was five years ago. Heart attack.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, and wanted to kick myself. As a woman living alone she probably kept his name on the phone book entry as a precaution.
She shrugged. “It happens.”
I barreled on. “Do you remember what happened eighteen years ago?”
She looked at me like I was crazy. “Of course I remember.”
“Sorry,” I said again. Ack! “Anyway, a funny thing happened a couple of weeks ago.”
“Funny?”
“Well, not funny like ha-ha. More like odd. My mother received a letter. Or rather a letter was returned to the house. It was from Bobby Lee.”
She looked at me like I was crazy again. “I don’t understand.”
“Bobby Lee wrote a letter before he died. He sent it to Tabby, but it came back to our house as undeliverable mail—eighteen years later.”
She licked her lips.
“Someone wrote
Return to sender
on it.” I pulled the envelope out of my bag. “See?”
Celeste got up abruptly and retrieved the coffeepot. Some of the dark liquid splashed onto the kitchen table as she topped off our ostrich mugs.
“Well, isn’t that strange.” She wouldn’t look at me. “What does this mystery letter say?”
“It refers to something that happened, something Bobby Lee was involved in. He seemed to assume Tabby knew about it, too, though I don’t know whether she was personally involved or not.” Talking about what my brother had assumed brought him into the present in a new and disconcerting way.
Celeste returned the coffeepot to the burner and sat down again. She ran her fingertips over a knothole in the pine tabletop. “That doesn’t sound very specific.”
“It’s not. That’s one reason why I’m here. Do you have any idea what he might have been talking about?”
Meeting my eyes, she shook her head.
“Tabby never said anything to you at the time?”
Another shake of the head. “We went through a bad patch, her and me, when she was a teenager. She wouldn’t talk to me about your brother—when he was alive, either.”
Ah, mothers and daughters.
“All’s I know is Tabby was taking classes at NCU—wanted to be a vet—and he’d taken a year off before going to college. I think it might have been a problem for them.”
Hmm. Tabby hadn’t mentioned that. “Were they fighting?” I asked, remembering Dad said something in the basement earlier about how Bobby Lee was having problems with his girlfriend.
Celeste’s shoulders rose then slumped. “I guess. I heard her yelling on the phone a couple of times. Pretty sure she was talking to Bobby Lee. Could’ve been one of the other boys, though. There were three or four of them head over heels for that girl. The phone rang off the hook.”
“But she was only dating Bobby Lee, right?”
“Oh, yes. The others were just her friends. You know …” she said, looking into a distance that wasn’t there.
“Yes?” I prompted.
“There was another death around then. Someone Tabby’s age. Accident. Not anyone I knew. No one I thought Tabby knew.” She glanced at me and shrugged.
“What happened?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember now. Something about the cold weather. It was a long time ago.”
Another death. The town of Spring Creek wasn’t that large. More than likely at least one of the Tabby/Joe/Bobby Lee trio had known him. Her?
“The accident you mentioned—was it a boy or a girl?” I asked.
“Boy. No, girl. I don’t remember. Sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.” Tabby’s mother took another swallow of coffee. The steam fogged her glasses. The fan in the corner barely stirred the air.
Was she being deliberately unhelpful? I couldn’t tell.
“I have one more question,” I said.
Resignation twisted the corner of her mouth. “Okay.”
I paused, searching for the right words. “Did you already know Bobby Lee sent Tabby a letter?”
“No.” The word came quickly.
Too quickly.
I cocked my head to one side. “Really?”
“I told you. Tabby didn’t confide in me.”
Hmmm. I pushed the envelope across the table. My brother’s loopy scrawl affected me like a painful tooth. It hurt to look at it, but I couldn’t seem to stop. But now I pointed to the
Return to sender
notation. “This doesn’t look like a teenaged girl’s writing. It looks like an adult’s.”
She stared at it for a long moment, then suddenly blinked and leaned toward me. “I don’t know anything about that letter. Sorry.”
“Tabby told me it’s your handwriting.”
Her eyes flicked back to the words, and the tip of her tongue worked against her lip.
“Why did you send the letter back?” I asked.
Celeste exhaled. “I just did, okay? She was already a mess. There wasn’t anything Bobby Lee had to say that Tabitha needed to see right then.” She rose to her feet. “Now, I’m sorry, but I gotta get to work over to the liquor store. If I’m late they’ll dock me.”
Slowly I pushed back from the table. She led me to the front door and opened it with a decisive gesture.
“One more thing,” I said.
Big sigh. “What?”
“When did you send it back?”
She looked confused. “What do you mean when? When I got it.”
“You didn’t keep it for a while?” Like eighteen years. “Maybe it took some time to decide to return it?”
There came the look doubting my sanity again. “No. I knew right away she shouldn’t see it.”
And yet, Celeste hadn’t destroyed it. Would I have, under the same circumstances?
“Thanks for your help,” I said, utterly baffled.
“Sure.” The door shut in my face, and the cat immediately wrapped itself around my ankles as I turned away. I stumbled and almost fell.
“Mrow.”
I glanced back at Celeste Atwood’s closed front door, then down at the tabby. “You’ve got that right.”
Where the heck had that letter been all this time?