A Patchwork of Clues

by Sally Goldenbaum

  She and Hoover had the block to themselves and they walked slowly down the row of shops. As they passed the Flowers by Daisy shop, Po noticed that Daisy had increased her bed of plastic flowers—probably out of spite, she thought—and further down, Gus had a new display of books in the window. “Banned books,” the sign read, and beneath it was a delightful display of some of Po’s favorite masterpieces. She stopped and peered through the glass, reading each title carefully, catching herself tsking out loud now and then at such folly. Catcher in the Rye, Gone with the Wind, Twelfth Night, Tom Sawyer, On the Origin of Species. And, oh my, one she hadn’t known about before: a 1989 school ban on Little Red Riding Hood. Good for Gus. Raising awareness was never a bad thing. And it was certainly something they were all being called to do these recent days.

  A shadow fell across the sidewalk behind her and she glanced back to see who was coming. Even if it had been pitch-black out, she would have known who it was. As it was, his distinguishable bulky frame was silhouetted by the tall lamplights.

  Wesley Peet, swinging a lit flashlight, his gait unsteady. Hoover growled and his ears shot up.

  Po grabbed his leash and whispered soothing, quieting words, her eyes not leaving the brawny shadow behind the flashlight. The light cast eerie, jagged streaks across the sidewalk.

  Suddenly the beam of light changed direction. Instead of continuing on toward her, Wesley turned down the narrow alley between Daisy’s and the Brew and Brie and disappeared into the alley shadows.

  Po wasn’t even sure he had seen her. She shivered. Suddenly the night was darker, the air sharper, and winter seemed far closer than it had earlier in the day. She remembered what someone had said recently about Owen. He was about to fire Wesley. A half-empty bottle of whiskey been smashed against Marla’s building one night, and Wesley didn’t deny it when Owen had confronted him.

  At the time, it hadn’t seemed important. Now, everything seemed more sinister and ominous. Could Wesley have killed Owen out of anger? Fear of being fired? She pulled up the collar of her jacket, coaxed Hoover away from the fire hydrant, and walked quickly down the street. Maybe Selma was still in the shop, doing paperwork or straightening bolts of fabric. Po could pick up a blade for her rotary cutter. And she’d calm down a bit, too, before she headed home.

  It was Susan who answered her light tap at the door and slid the bolt to the side. “Po and Hoover,” she said, bending over and scratching the dog behind the ears. “What a nice surprise.”

  “I thought Selma might still be here and I could pick up a rotary cutter blade.”

  “No, she’s not here, but I’ll get you the blade. Eleanor dragged Selma off to the opera in Kansas City. Not exactly Selma’s cup of tea but Eleanor insisted she get out of town for a night. I think she’s right. And they were going to go to Arthur Bryant’s for barbecue before the performance, which will make Selma happy, even if she doesn’t like the performance.”

  “What are you doing here so late, Susan?”

  “I thought I’d catch up on some things for Selma. She works too hard.”

  “Selma told me you often do that—stay late to help her out.”

  “Sometimes. Not so often really.” Susan straightened a bolt of fabric, fitting it back onto the shelf.

  “It’s nice of you. I’d think you’d have better things to do on a Saturday night.”

  Susan shrugged. She walked across the room and found the blade on the supplies rack, then took it to the counter. “Shall I charge this?” she asked.

  “That’d be fine. I forgot that I didn’t bring a purse.”

  Susan paused, a pencil in her hand. Finally, she turned around and looked at Po. Her eyes were moist and her hand shook slightly. She took a deep breath of air.

  “What’s wrong, Susan?”

  “Po, I need to talk to you.” The words seemed to stick painfully in her throat.

  Po waited, giving her space. Whatever she wanted to say was difficult, Po could see that. Suddenly Hoover, who had been lying near the counter next to Susan, stood at attention, his tail straight and his ears back. His nose lifted into the air.

  Susan dropped the pencil and Po looked around. Then they both heard what had alerted the dog. An insistent rattling at the back door, then the sound of the door opening and slamming shut.

  “Who’s there?” Susan called out. Po moved to grab Hoover’s leash.

  The women heard him before they saw him. The hardwood floor creaked beneath the uneven, slow-moving gait of the large, bulbous body.

  “What y’all doing here so late?” Wesley Peet stood in the doorway of the workroom, a crooked grin on his ruddy face.

  “Wesley, you’re not supposed to come in here,” Susan said. Her voice was controlled and even, but her fear was visible in the tight hold of her head and her clenched fists.

  “My job’s to check on you, pretty lady,” he slurred. His eyes were half-shut, his head held back as if to see Susan beneath the partially closed lids. Thin strands of greased hair were slicked back over the pink dome of his head. “Besides, who cares now?”

  “As I understand it, your job is to check on the stores from the outside, Wesley,” Po said. “There is no disturbance in here. Perhaps you should leave now.”

  Wesley ignored Po, his eyes remaining on Susan’s face. He moved a step closer. “Getting cold out there. You’d better bundle up, Susie-Q.” He put his round hands on the counter, his eyes traveling over Susan’s body. “Maybe you’re needing someone to keep you warm, Miss Susan?”

  Hoover growled and slunk down next to Po.

  Po patted the dog’s head and looked hard at Wesley, trying to gauge the level of inebriation. Her eyes took in the dirt beneath his stubby, broken nails and a snake tattoo that curled in and out between his fingers. A dirty white T-shirt peeked out beneath the open front of his blue security uniform, and the stench of sweat, mixed with the sour odor of liquor and stale food, was sickening. “It’s good of you to check on us, but we’re fine.” Po stretched her five-foot-eight frame to capacity.

  “I ain’t leaving yet,” he said. His lips curled.

  “Do you want to get fired?” Susan asked, her voice lifting to an uncomfortable level. Hoover bared his teeth.

  Sloppy, loud laughter filled the room. Wesley Peet shoved his hands into his pocket and swayed back and forth. “Fired? Now that’s a laugh. And who’s gonna fire me? Professor Hill? Lawyer Elliott?”

  Po could feel his lurid, thick laughter in her bones. She took a step backward and shoved one hand into the pocket of her jeans. Her fingers curled around her phone. The movement drew Wesley’s stare her way.

  “None of you can fire me, Ms. Portia. I know all about you sewing ladies, for sure I do. That’s my job. Wesley Peet’s protection agency. And Wesley himself is the most protected of all. Sometimes it pays to be…”

  He looked around the room as if he’d find the word he wanted lined up next to the bolts of cotton sheeting. Then he focused back on the two women, lifted a finger in the air as if testing the direction of the wind, and spit out his sentence: “Sometimes it pays to be curious!” Wesley began to laugh again, harder and harder, and leaned so far to one side that Po was sure he would topple over and become a giant unconscious puddle on the floor. But instead, he righted himself, pulling a hand out of his pocket and grasping a display rack for balance. Feeling secure, he took a step toward Susan and rubbed one grubby finger along her arm.

  Susan recoiled, pulling her arm to her chest.

  “That’s it…out of here!” Po grabbed a long pair of scissors from the desk and held it up in the air. “Out!” she yelled. “Now.” With that, Hoover leapt into action and rushed toward Wesley Peet, his tail swinging and his white teeth ready for flesh.

  Wesley’s retreat took seconds. The slam of the back door and crunch of gravel as he ran down the alley assured Po and Susan that he wouldn’t be back.


  “What a horrible, awful man,” Po said, sinking into a chair.

  “A drunk, awful man.” Susan’s face was pale.

  “There’s no question about keeping him on now,” Po said. “You need to tell Selma tomorrow, and she needs to get him fired. And if you don’t, Susan, I will.”

  Susan nodded, turning off the computer. “Po, I don’t want you walking home. I’m leaving now. I’ll drive you.”

  “But I have Hoover,” Po began. Hoover’s ears picked up. He was sitting next to Po, his head cocked with pride for his recent successful chase.

  “Don’t be silly. Hoover’s welcome to ride in my car, if he can stand the backseat mess. Come on, I can finish this tomorrow.” She grabbed a ring of keys and her jacket, turned out the lights and locked the door, and they headed for her car.

  “This is nice of you. I run in this neighborhood all the time, but walking home alone tonight might have been uncomfortable.” Po settled into the front seat of Susan’s red Ford Escort while Hoover happily curled up with a stack of books in the back.

  “Sometimes I think my whole life is in this car,” Susan said, glancing back at a pair of sneakers, piles of notebooks, papers, books, and assorted bags. She patted Hoover’s head as he stuck his nose into an old grocery bag.

  “You’ve a busy life,” Po said. “I remember when the kids were little, my car held clothes, food, homework, and many things I’d hate to mention.” They turned the corner at Windsor House, then drove by the alley entrance. Po glanced down the narrow road and spotted Wesley getting into a truck parked beneath the alley lamppost. He was fumbling, as if he’d lost his keys.

  “Would you please pull over, Susan?” she asked, pulling out her cellphone. She dialed an emergency number, telling the operator the location and make of Wesley’s truck. “He shouldn’t be driving,” she said.

  “That was smart,” Susan said. “He could kill someone.” They waited for a minute until they heard the sound of a siren, then saw the police car pull into the alley just as Wesley finally gunned the engine.

  Susan started to pull away from the curb, then slowed and glanced back. “Did you notice that truck?”

  Po looked back at the shiny Dodge Ram.

  “Wesley was driving a beat-up old Chevy last I noticed. Do you suppose he won the lottery?” Susan said.

  “I hope so. It may make up for the job he’s about to lose,” Po said. She rested her head back against the seat.

  Susan drove on, turning onto Po’s shaded street. She pulled into the driveway and came to a stop.

  Po stepped out of the car and opened the back door for Hoover, who immediately ran around to the backyard. Po watched his tail disappear behind the house.

  “Well, at least he waited until we got home to do his thing.” She leaned through the open window and looked across at Susan. “Thanks so much for the ride. If I can ever do anything for you…” Her words hung in the air. “If you want to talk?” Susan hadn’t picked up on the conversation Wesley had interrupted. During the drive home, Po could tell that she had moved beyond it and was unlikely to return, at least not tonight.

  “Thank you, Po.” She smiled, nodded, then looked behind her to be sure the road was clear and put the car in reverse.

  “Well, I’m here.” Po stepped aside and watched with an inexplicably heavy heart as Susan drove off into the night, to what seemed to Po to be a burdened, lonely life.

  Chapter 17

  Wild Goose Chase

  Scott Paltrow had started the Sunday supper tradition before the ink was dry on their marriage certificate. As a child, he had never liked Sunday nights, he told Po. His dad was a salesman and that’s what the evening meant to the family: saying goodbye as their dad went off into a week away from them.

  So together he and Po had come up with a warm cozy Sunday night that was never lonely. When the three Paltrow kids were old enough, they’d all pitch in and help with the meal, planning and cooking. And supper would be followed by games around the old wooden table. A fire in winter, dinner outside in the summer. Sometimes friends dropped in, sometimes it was the five of them.

  When the kids went off to college, Sunday evenings evolved into fancier meals, with Po experimenting with wine-flavored sauces and seafood pastas, and Scott replacing his hot dog grilling expertise for slabs of ribs, trout, and steaks on the grill. Friends, family, neighbors—and sometimes near-strangers who needed a warm meal and spirited conversation—ended up at “Scott’s Sunday suppers,” as they came to be called. And no one entering the house at 22 Maple Lane ever stayed a stranger for long. Both Scott and Po made sure of that.

  After Scott died, Po never for a minute thought about discontinuing the suppers. She missed a Sunday now and then because she was traveling or a book deadline loomed, and sometimes it was a small group of three or four, but to stop the tradition wouldn’t have felt right.

  Po fussed around in the kitchen late Sunday afternoon, wondering who would show up tonight. Kate had been a regular since she’d been back in town, and usually managed to sneak out at the end of the evening with enough leftovers for a week’s worth of lunches.

  Tonight she was the first one to arrive. And Po wasn’t surprised when she arrived with P.J. in tow. It pleased Po, though she would never for one minute let Kate know. If she was as stubborn in adulthood as she’d been as a teenager, it would be the end of P.J.

  P.J. set a six pack of beer on the kitchen counter and gave Po a hug. He wore jeans and a crisp chambray shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. His flop of thick brown hair was carefully brushed and slightly damp from a recent shower.

  Po smiled and pointed to the open back doors. “Coals need piling and if I remember correctly, you were a scout. Scouts are good at building fires, right?”

  P.J. laughed and headed outside, a box of matches in his hand.

  Po placed a huge piece of plump, fresh salmon in a dill wine marinade and glanced over at Kate.

  “I’m glad P.J. came. He used to come to some of these when his parents still lived here.”

  “Those years when I was off in California sowing wild oats?”

  “Those are the ones.”

  “He’s even more mellow than I remember him,” Kate said. She grabbed a cutting board and a handful of carrots from a strainer in the sink. “I’d say if he mellowed any more, he’d be asleep standing in those size fourteen shoes.” She wrinkled her nose at Po and began chopping the carrots into tiny pieces.

  “Being mellow isn’t all bad. Now watch your fingers, Kate.” Po turned the burner down beneath the lemon butter sauce for the asparagus and looked at Kate again. “Okay, what does that face mean?”

  “It means that even without my mother beside you, you’re still a meddlin’ woman, Po Paltrow.”

  Po’s husky laugh mingled with the faint strains of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons coming from the stereo. “And you haven’t forgotten how to put me in my place. Now, dear heart, back to P.J. What was that that Phoebe called him a while back?”

  “Man candy,” Eleanor called out, coming in from the hallway, her cane tip-tapping on the hardwood floor. “And you really ought to consider locking your front door.” She dropped her cane beside a dining chair and sat down.

  “And why would I do that, Eleanor? Then people like you might not walk in.”

  Eleanor was wearing her signature wide-legged pants. Tonight they were paired with a purple T-shirt and a silk scarf around her neck. She had added a jaunty hat that sat loosely on her steel gray hair. “Here,” she said, placing a bottle of Chardonnay on the table. “But none for me. I still have some work to do on my star when I get home.”

  Kate groaned. “I worked on mine this morning and my corners look more like roundabouts!”

  “You’ll get the hang of it, Kate,” Eleanor said. “It has taken me thirty years to get my corners square. I think I want that on my t
ombstone. Here lies Eleanor. Her corners were square.” Eleanor’s contagious laughter was deep, throaty, and filled with more than eight decades of an adventurous life.

  “Well, I’m not quilting tonight, so I’ll have wine,” Po said. “You two pick your poison and make sure P.J. has whatever his sweet heart desires.”

  By the time they had the vegetables cut and the orzo ready to boil in a peppery broth, the doorbell was ringing. August Schuette and his wife, Rita, had arrived. Rita carried a platter of plump mushrooms filled with creamy crab. Leah followed them in, her husband, Tim, congratulating Gus on his banned books display.

  Before long the kitchen area was filled with people, appetizers, and animated talk. Phoebe and Jimmy came with the twins, who were immediately scooped up and passed around by eager arms anxious to hug the babies or to sit on the floor and catch them as they groped their way around the furniture.

  Kate followed Po out to the patio, carrying a brush and the bowl of marinade. A breeze whipped her hair around her cheekbones. Her well-worn jeans were frayed at the bottom, and a cobalt blue cashmere that Po had given her for Christmas matched her eyes. She wrapped her arms around her soft sweater and walked toward the grill.

  P.J. stopped and watched the two women coming toward him. “How rich a man am I,” he said dramatically.

  “The cornball kid,” Po said. “Some things don’t change no matter how much they mellow or age.”

  Kate laughed and P.J. looked confused but brushed it off as a ladies’ private joke. “Fire’s ready, Po. Bring on the salmon.”

  Po handed him the salmon tray. “It’s all yours, P.J.”

  Kate set the sauce on the table next to the grill. “Is there any update on the hit and run?”

  “Not much,” P.J. said. He teased the coals with a metal fork and they jumped to life. “I checked on Max earlier. They’re keeping him in a coma to let his brain rest. The doctors aren’t saying much.”

  “What a blow this must be for Mary Hill. Her husband, and now her husband’s best friend,” Po said. “I know Mary’s been calling the hospital nonstop.”