Authors: Earlene Fowler
Fool's Puzzle (16 page)
I don’t know what made me kiss back—desire, anxiety, loneliness. But as our kiss deepened, somewhere in the twisting caverns of my mind, Jack’s brown eyes lurked, dark and tender, and the memory caused me to stiffen and pull back. Ortiz’s arms tightened for a split second, then let go.
“I can’t,” I said, feeling dazed and nervous and irrationally guilty, as if I were cheating. My rapid breath blew a small white cloud that floated up and mingled with his.
“I’m sorry,” he said, something close to a look of desperation on his face. “That was ... I don’t know why ...” His voice trailed off. Then he frowned. “Go home.” He turned and walked toward his car, his back rigid, the gravel crunching like tiny bird bones under his feet.
I stared at him open-mouthed. He was acting as if I’d done something wrong. I was as embarrassed as he was, but you didn’t see me snapping anyone’s head off.
“Don’t make such a big deal about it, Ortiz,” I called after him, my voice quivering more than I would have liked. “It certainly isn’t to me.”
He stopped, turned slowly around and looked at me, the hard, shadowy planes of his face blank.
“Let’s just blame it on the moon.” I pointed up at the black, empty sky, wondering why in the world I was trying to make this easier for him. I guess being married as long as I had, it just came out without thinking. Old habits die harder than loco weed.
His face relaxed slightly. “You’d better go home,” he said softly and turned away.
I climbed into my truck and sat there for a minute, hugging myself; his kiss had affected me more than I wanted to admit. I leaned my head on the steering wheel, inhaled deeply and tried to sort out my feelings.
The physical memory of his warm lips, the scratch of his raspy mustache, the comfort of his strong arms, lingered on my skin. I felt aroused, embarrassed, ashamed. Jack had been dead only nine months. What kind of person would even be thinking what I’m thinking? Especially about someone they’d only known four days?
A person who’s alive and kicking is what Dove would say.
After three tries and some creative language, the truck’s engine turned over. I flipped my headlights on. Seconds later, Ortiz’s came on. That small protective act made me smile. It was exactly what Jack would have done.
He followed me to the corner, but when I turned right, he kept going straight. I sighed in relief. The way I was feeling and after what happened between us, my place at three A.M. would have been a mistake. A big mistake. And by the fifth or sixth time of telling myself that, I almost believed it.
12
“YOU LOOK LIKE ...” Meg started.
“Don’t say it.” I lowered the brim of my blue Dodgers baseball cap in an attempt to conceal a face that needed about six more hours sleep.
“I was just going to say you look like death warmed over.” She twisted a strand of toffee hair and giggled nervously. “But that’s a bad choice of words, I guess. Isn’t it awful about Eric? I hope this isn’t some kind of serial killer who has it in for artists.”
“Is everything all set to go in the quilt booth?” I didn’t want to discuss Eric’s death with anyone else this morning. I was awakened at six A.M. first by Elvia wanting to know if I was all right, then Carl, wanting to know if I had any information the police weren’t releasing, and finally Dove, giving me a second chance at the bodyguard services of one elderly aunt.
“We’re ready to roll,” Meg said, glancing at her watch. “One hour to blastoff. There are people arriving already. One old lady wanted to have her picture taken in the place where the two murders happened. Gross, huh?” She wrinkled her pale, freckled nose.
“No one is allowed upstairs or to point out the place in the woodshop where Marla was killed,” I said. “Pass that around. I’ll bring them before the co-op board and have their studio privileges revoked if I catch anyone showing those places to the public. Let’s try and leave Marla and Eric with a little dignity.”
“I’ll tell everyone,” Meg said evenly, not dispirited by my prickly tone. “There’s coffee in the pottery booth,” she added diplomatically.
“Thanks,” I answered, a bit chagrined by my attitude. I didn’t want to tell her I’d had four cups already and that lack of caffeine wasn’t my problem. I looked up at the cloudy sky, hoping the weather forecast was accurate—low clouds burning off to a sunny day. The sooner I could cover the bags under my eyes with sunglasses, the better.
By ten o‘clock, cars were parked half a mile down the highway and the craft booths in the museum parking lot were snaked with lines of people. It appeared the murders actually improved attendance at the festival rather than harmed it.
The VFW and a couple of Boy Scout troops had fired up their steel barrel barbeques early and were slowly cooking ribs and chicken over oakwood in the Santa Maria style barbeque no event in the county was ever without. My stomach growled when the scents of the spicy beef and chicken hit my nose, making the chocolate doughnut I’d had at seven o‘clock seem like a mirage.
I was standing next to a booth selling anodized earrings in the shapes of endangered animals when I felt a dry, rough hand slip under my braid and squeeze my neck.
“Hey, squirt. Heard you found another body.” I turned around and smiled up into the gray eyes and sun-webbed face of my father.
I slipped my arm around his solid waist. The smell of his clean cotton shirt and English Leather aftershave was familiar and comforting. “Daddy! Am I glad to see you.” I leaned my head against his shoulder. “It was our handyman, Eric. I think it’s connected with the other murder, but I don’t know how.” I shivered. “Kind of spooks me a little, but I’m mostly okay. Where’s Dove and Aunt Garnet?”
“Garnet woke up with a cold in her ear this morning, so they aren’t coming. I was sent to cheer you on.”
“Dove didn’t tell me that when she called this morning,” I said. “Well, cheer away. I can certainly use it.”
“Don’t think Garnet was up when Dove called. You know, I don’t feel real comfortable with you working where there’s been two murders.”
“Really, there’s nothing for you to worry about,” I said. “They have nothing to do with me except that I was unfortunate enough to discover them. I’m getting a rather gruesome reputation around San Celina these days.”
“You be careful, you hear?” He reached over and pulled the brim of my cap down. “You still keep Jack’s .45 in your bedroom?”
“Sure do,” I said, pushing my hat back up.
“Don’t forget to ...”
“I know. Aim for the oysters.”
He chuckled at our old joke. “Guess so long as I’m here, I’ll drop by the feed supply and see if my order’s in. Got anything you want to send back to the sisters?”
“No, but tell Dove I’ll call in a couple of days. And tell Aunt Garnet I’m sorry she’s feeling bad and couldn’t make it.”
“Right.” He pulled at his long white sideburns and gave me a slow hound-dog grin.
“Well, I am sorry she’s feeling bad,” I said, returning his grin.
I had started walking back to the museum to see how the exhibit was faring when I ran into Sandra. Her face was pallid, and the shadows staining the delicate flesh under her eyes made me guess that she’d slept as little as me last night.
“I’ve been looking for you for an hour.” Her breath came in hard little puffs. She shifted sixteen-month-old Casey to her other hip. “Wade’s here. You said you’d talk to him.”
“Right,” I said, wishing I hadn’t made that impulsive promise. Getting involved in someone else’s marriage problems was just asking for a boot in the butt. “Where is he?”
“Over by the food booths and he’s in a real bad mood. He didn’t get in until after three last night and he was mean as a badger when I asked him where he’d been.”
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I said. “If he won’t talk to you, I’m sure he won’t to me either.”
“You were always good with him,” she insisted. “Almost as good as Jack was. I don’t have anyone else to ask.”
Taking Jack’s place in the Harper family constellation was discomforting and yet, oddly appealing. At least it made me feel as if I still belonged someplace.
“I’ll catch up with you later and let you know what happened.” I reached over and gave a quick raspberry kiss to Casey’s downy cheek, causing him to giggle. “I can’t believe I’m missing all of Casey’s growing up.”
“You should come out more,” she said.
“I will.” But we both knew I wouldn’t.
Wade stood around the smoking barbeques with a group of men dressed in such a similar manner they could have been a convention of ex-Marlboro Men. Jack would have fit right in. I wondered if I would ever get over the expectation he would just appear one day from behind an oak tree and tell me it was all a big joke.
“Hey, Wade,” I said. I picked up a soft dinner roll and took a bite.
“That’ll be a quarter,” he said good-naturedly, and pushed down the brim of my hat. One of the most irritating things about being short is a great many people seem to feel since the top of your head is visible, it is public domain. My head has been ruffled, patted, and tweaked more than most cocker spaniels.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” I readjusted my cap and tossed the roll at him.
“Talk away.” He dodged it and moved the toothpick hanging from his mouth from one side to the other.
I glanced around at the men lolling around the smoking barbeque.
“Alone,” I said in a low voice.
“Sounds serious, Wade,” a thin man with an Adam’s apple as sharp as an arrowhead said as he flipped a rack of ribs with long silver tongs. The dripping juices sizzled when they hit the hot fire. “What have you been up to?”
“Nothin‘ good, that’s for sure,” Wade replied. He followed me to a grove of eucalyptus trees a short distance away. With the hope he was kidding, I looked at him grimly.
“Why the long face, blondie?” He pushed his gray cowboy hat back and leaned against the peeling trunk of a eucalyptus tree.
“Wade, I’m just going to be blunt, okay?”
“Why change now?” he asked, smiling.
“Sandra’s upset.”
The smile froze underneath his stiff brown mustache. “She’s always upset this time of the month. It’s just female stuff. She’ll be okay in a couple of days.” He rolled his toothpick again and gave a lazy smirk.
He couldn’t have made me madder if he’d held me down and pierced my ears with a ten-penny nail. So I decided to just spit it out.
“She thinks you’re cheating on her, and as far as I can see, she has pretty good reason to.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“A certain cocktail napkin with the phone number of a certain woman who is now dead. Ring any bells?”
A surprised look fractured his smile. “How’d she get ahold of that?”
“Doesn’t matter. What about it?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and frowned. “It’s not what you think.”
“And just what am I thinking?”
“Stay out of this. It’s between Sandra and me.”
“So talk to her about it.”
“I will. When I’m ready.”
“Not good enough. Besides, I’d like to know myself just how you were involved with Marla.”
Driving his fist into the eucalyptus trunk, he turned and pointed a work-cracked finger at me. “You need to mind your own business.”
“You need to talk to your wife,” I snapped back.
“I said when I’m ready.” He started to walk away, then turned back and scowled at me. “Just butt out, Benni. You’re not part of this family anymore. What happens between us isn’t any of your concern.”
It was a good thing I didn’t have a shotgun in my hand right then, because I would have loved to pepper the “W” on the back of his jeans with a load of birdshot. I was livid, but a part of me was embarrassed, too—his remark hit too close to home. He was right; they weren’t my family anymore. But after all those years, it was hard to disconnect.
“Looks like you might make enough today to buy a few more pounds of clay.”
I turned to face a genial-faced Ortiz. He was casually dressed in faded black jeans, a pale blue sweatshirt with “L.A. Marathon” printed on it, and his beat-up topsiders. The washing machine had obviously lost his socks again.
“I hate to think the murders helped attendance, but I think they did.” I peeled a piece of bark off the tree and avoided meeting his eyes. Okay, I thought, this is how we’re going to play it—light and easy—as if nothing happened.
“Probably has. Believe me, people are basically morbid. How are you doing?” He stretched his arm up and pulled off a leaf I would have had to jump to reach.
“Fine.” I looked up at him suspiciously. Why was he always turning up at the oddest moments? Was he tailing me? Did police chiefs do that sort of thing? And how much of my fight with Wade did he hear?
“It’s hard not having a place where you fit,” he said softly. He held the leaf he’d picked under his nose. “One of the things I hate the most up here is the smell of eucalyptus. Reminds me of the Vicks my mom used to rub on my chest when I had a cold. Did your mom ever do that?”
Well, he heard the last part anyway. I wondered if he’d heard the part about Marla.
“Do you make it a habit of eavesdropping on private conversations?” I asked.
“Whenever I can.”
It was such an honest answer, I didn’t know what to say.
“We know about your brother-in-law’s affair with Ms. Chenier,” he said, tossing the leaf on the ground. “He wasn’t the only one.”
“He wasn’t?” I looked at the ground and wondered if they knew about Ray, if there were others I didn’t know about.
“That’s all I’m going to say.” He kicked at the pile of crackly, aromatic leaves we stood in. “I assume that whole napkin business has to do with your brother-in-law’s affair. You really should give it to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I peeled off another strip of bark.
He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, I can’t fault you for loyalty. Technically, I could haul you in right now. You’re just as much a suspect as your brother-in-law.”
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