“What good would it do? Most of your patients can’t see, anyway.”
He ignored me and said, “Joaquin is an Iris specialist. The best. We have great plans. And, Honey, I have a favor to ask you. One that will benefit all of us.” His gaze took in not only Joaquin and me but also Silas. “Would you consider renting your top floor to Joaquin? He doesn’t have any place to stay, and I’m sure it would be a comfort to you to know—”
I turned to Silas. “Did you know about this?”
“Sure did. Doc told me yesterday.” Silas bent his head toward mine and whispered, “Doc assures me he’s checked this guy out and everything is A-okay. You know what I mean?”
“But … in my house?” I hissed back.
“Not actually in the house. Upstairs. You know there’s no way to get into your part of the house from up there.”
This had gone far enough. I turned to Joaquin, who stood there with his eyes downcast. “Joaquin, this is nothing personal, but no one … no one. .. has ever stayed in the house. I don’t feel comfortable renting it.”
All three of the men looked disappointed, so I added, “At least not now. Not this minute. Let me think it over. You understand, don’t you?”
Ralph and Silas didn’t, but Joaquin raised his eyes and smiled again as he said, “Sí, Miss Huckleberry. I understand.”
Joaquin and Ralph left, making plans for temporary lodging for the gardener in the clinic staff room, and Silas and I walked back to the front of the house.
“I thought you told me your friend Steven Hyatt sometimes stayed on the third floor.”
“That hasn’t been for years, Silas. And only after his aunt died. I haven’t been up there in such a long time. Can’t begin to imagine what it looks like now.”
“Looks okay. I was up there myself yesterday, you know. A little musty, but good enough for a gardener, and I like the idea of someone being here with you.” He glanced at my face and amended, “I mean being near you … in case … you know.” He laughed. “I honestly think that’s why Ralph wanted to hire Joaquin … or someone like him.” Then, serious, he finished, “Honey, I want to … but I can’t … keep someone guarding you twenty-four hours a day.”
I have to admit I was pleased that Silas cared enough to worry about me outside the rigid guidelines his life dictated, but I was more pleased that I wouldn’t be watched every minute. I’d had a taste of that over the past two days. It felt confining, claustrophobic.
There had only been a small report of Steven Miller’s murder on last night’s TV news and a briefer account in the morning paper; breaking and entering in this neighborhood wasn’t actually news, and a killing was rated only slightly more newsworthy. But I wasn’t surprised that it had caught Janie Bridges’s eye; after all, murder was her business.
She sounded concerned when I heard her voice over the answering machine, and since I didn’t mind talking to her, I picked up the receiver before she could hang up. I was rewarded for my efforts by a blast of feedback.
“I hate that thing,” I said in way of opening the conversation.
“You had a murder in your house.” It sounded as if Janie was accusing me of winning a jackpot in which she’d had her name entered.
“Yes, I guess you read about it. It was my service station operator … and friend, Steven Miller.”
Personalizing the killing brought out Janie’s warm, mothering personality that somehow meshed with her bloodthirsty side. “How terrible for you. Yes, there’s a story in this morning’s Star-Telegram. I almost died when I saw your name. Do you want me to come?” she asked consolingly before she reverted to her darker self. “Honey, does this have anything to do with the Steven phone calls?”
Janie was the only one I had told about the second phone call. I was glad I had. I needed to talk to someone about the continued calls, and without pausing to think, I told her about the third one and the reason for my mad nocturnal race to Fort Worth. For the first time, I shared the terror of finding Steven Miller’s body, the guilt over not revealing the additional phone calls, and my growing doubt that maybe Steven X wasn’t innocent, after all.
“But something made you think so in the first place, Honey. What was it?” Janie persisted.
It’s hard to explain intangibles. How do you say, “It was in his voice,” and mean the righteous anger, the confusion, and the frustration I’d heard; that of an innocent person caught in something he didn’t understand but that was so overpowering it forced him to desperate acts.
Desperate enough to kill Steven Miller? I wondered. If not, why hadn’t he called last night to explain?
“I trust your instincts. If you thought he wasn’t dangerous to you, then he’s not. It’s that simple. And you’ll hear from him. I just know it,” and I could actually feel her excited shiver over the phone. “With all the real action going on at your end, it makes my contribution look paltry.”
“Why, what are you doing?” I asked aloud, but inside my question was, Will he call again?
“Looking for clues, of course. Reading all the newspapers. That’s why I read the Fort Worth paper this morning. I was looking for murders in Europe, you remember? We did decide Steven was in Europe,” Janie declared.
You did, I thought, remembering our last conversation from Padre. And yet, I remembered the feeling I’d had. The feeling that Janie was right on this one.
Trying to sound interested, I asked, “And what have you discovered?”
“A car-bombing in Prague. Another in Belfast. A stabbing in London, only don’t count that one; the wife confessed.” She went on with her list. “A laboratory explosion in Florence. How about this one … a train-derailment in southern—”
I interrupted, “Wait a minute. I didn’t know someone was killed in that laboratory explosion in Italy.” Somewhere in my briefcase or on the back floorboard of my car, there was an article I’d torn out of USA Today—oh, it seemed like three years ago. An article I’d saved to show Steven Miller, about alternate fuels. Maybe it was the obscure connection with the dead man. Maybe it was the surprise that I hadn’t remembered a death from the explosion, but something about Janie’s report clicked … seemed right.
Janie rattled on, “Yes, one man. I don’t think they found his body at first, and then there was some trouble identifying it. The fire and all, you know. Ugh. Well, anyway, you think there might be something to it?”
“Just a feeling, that’s all.”
“You know how I trust your instincts. I’ll find out more about it and call you back. Honey, are you really all right? I can come … be there in about an hour.” She sounded wistful.
“No, don’t do that. I was just going out to do my regular Saturday chores, and I’m already late. I’m fine, Janie.” I tried to express my gratitude for her call, but I could tell she was only half-acknowledging me, her mind deep at work on a train of thought that led straight to a demolished laboratory in northern Italy.
FOURTEEN
The comfort I’d always derived from my Saturday routine seemed boring and insignificant today. I tossed an apologetic “car trouble” to Peggy when she clucked over my unusual lateness, and since it was so late—almost noon—I only mouthed “strawberry butter” to Judy at the Bistro as I ordered croissants. I upped my order to six; people had been dropping by unexpectedly. Judy, busy with the lunch crowd, smiled and nodded, pleased with the culinary news from Houston I’d promised her two weeks ago.
I didn’t even stop at the bookstore, although I knew I’d regret not picking up the Times book section. But after all, it wasn’t like I was going to leave town. I could come back Monday and get it; the thought of breaking my usual pattern put goose bumps on my arms and I shivered from the anxiety over the unexpected and unwelcome options in my life. Not for the first time I wondered about the structure of my life.
There was a whole week ahead of me in which only a funeral seemed to be a specific appointment. There was the decision of whether to rent my upstairs or not. Would Steven
X call? And from out of nowhere, I remembered Harry.
What to do about Harry occupied my mind as I pushed the grocery cart up and down the aisles in the most haphazard shopping trip I’d ever conducted. Just one day off my schedule, and I was throwing items like clam sauce into the basket. And I knew I was allergic to clam sauce.
I called Harry when I arrived home. I didn’t tell him about Steven Miller. I think he thought the strain in my voice was due to the way we had parted in Brownsville, but he didn’t press me, didn’t ask for any answers. I hung up. I did love Harry. Didn’t I?
I called Southwestern Bell and asked for the charges from my number to Alice last Thursday night. It came to three dollars and thirty-seven cents. I knew Steven had called from my house.
Silas Sampson called me and said it was all right to clean up the living room, that the lab had all they needed.
I wound up crying as I emptied one bucket of bloody water after another into the dirt around the rose bushes. I just couldn’t pour what was left of Steven Miller down the drain.
After my third trip, Joaquin Verde took the bucket from me and said, “Let me finish up for you.” And I let him. Another stranger in my house; he knelt and scrubbed the stains from the carpet with a stiff-bristled brush that we mutually agreed was to be discarded afterward along with the bucket and rags I’d given him for the unpleasant job.
The afternoon had been warm—spring days can be like that—and we opened windows in the living room and dining room to let a cross draft dry the carpet.
The long Saturday was almost over when, after walking to the door four times, I made up my mind and called to Joaquin, who was turning earth in the garden. “I’ve made some supper, linguini with clam sauce and a salad. Will you eat with me?”
He cleaned up first outside with the hose and then again at my kitchen sink, apologizing for the mess he was making. His big brown hands filled the tiny sink and water splashed onto the wood counter. He was still apologizing, brushing at his coveralls, as he sat down at the miniature picnic-type kitchen table to eat.
“No, don’t. I’m no great shakes myself,” I said looking down at my blue jeans with still damp knees from where I’d knelt earlier on the wet carpet.
I served him a huge platter of linguini and a large bowl of salad. He took oil and vinegar on his salad, and I informally handed him the bottles to pour his own proportion along with a napkin-covered basket of toasted garlic bread. He didn’t eat, and I realized he was waiting for me.
“Go ahead. Eat. Don’t wait for me. I’m just having salad and bread.” I told him about being allergic to clam sauce and we laughed. It was the first real laugh I’d had since I’d left Harry.
Joaquin had good manners for a Mexican laborer, and while I had only been being polite and grateful for his earlier help, I suddenly was curious about this man. “Where are you from, Joaquin?”
“California.”
“Ah,” I said. I love Texas with its strange quirks that range from its present politics to its earlier recorded history of independence. To me it would always stand above the rest of the states, but I knew Californians and New Yorkers had the same inherent incongruities that bonded them together as well. Like a giant triangle on the U.S. map, these states stand as anchors for the other forty-seven.
An educated Mexican yardman was only one of the anomalies California had given the world. And I’d said, “Ah,” because I could now understand how Joaquin Verde could sit with his thick, black hair tied in a ponytail, his rough, blue work shirt rolled to the elbows, and huge boots taking up all the available room under my table—and ask with an Emily Post inflection, “Would you pass the bread, please?”
“There’s no dessert, but you’re welcome to smoke,” I indicated the pack of cigarettes that was sticking out of his shirt pocket as I cleared away the dishes. I dumped them into the sink and sat down again, handing Joaquin a saucer for an ashtray, which he pulled toward him to deposit a burnt match.
“Tell me about the irises,” I said into the comfortable silence.
He told me about his love for the ancient flower, so old in fact that some experts declared that it was the original “lily of the valley” from the Bible. His black eyes flashed with enthusiasm as he told me of the hybrids and how he’d developed one of his own, back in California.
“Tell me about the roses,” he said, and in return for the iris story, I told him about the rose garden. Not much to tell, really, just that it had been my father’s pet project, and I thought the bushes were old.
Joaquin agreed and told me that I should go to Washington, D.C., someday—if I’d never been—and visit the White House rose garden. That there were some plants in it like mine. “The old-fashioned-ones,” he called them. “From back when roses were named simple names like Peace and American Beauty.”
We went out into the yard, and in the new dark, he showed me where he was going to plant the rhizomes for my garden, his design appealing to my love of patterns and colors. “You’re lucky,” he said. “Here in Fort Worth you have a pretty good Iris Association, and when I called them today, they became excited about your new garden. I can get you nearly every variety I want.”
Changing the subject, I asked him a question that was bothering me. “Joaquin, why did you come to Texas?”
His open expression closed, and he said, “I just did, that’s all.”
We were sitting in the gazebo—I had never dared to sit out there at night before—drinking coffee, and when he turned his head away after answering my question, I felt alone. It was dark, and the lights from the stars above and the back porch both seemed a far and equal distance away.
I was rising to go when he turned back to me with that gentle smile I’d first noticed and asked, “Now, you tell me about your house.”
His demand didn’t bother me like it had when Silas had made a similar request. It felt right looking at it from the shadow of the yard to tell this man about the house, but first I told him about the other times I’d sat in the backyard at night. “There was a white wooden swing in a frame right here where the gazebo is now. My mother and father would sit in it and swing back and forth … little swings … just enough so there was a tiny squeak, squeak sound. And I’d lie on the ground on a pallet, an old quilt that we kept just for that purpose.” I sighed, remembering. “The night sounds were pretty much like they are now.” We both held our breath as we listened. “No,” I amended. “You didn’t hear so much traffic from Rosedale this late, but the croaking things in the grass making that pitiful mating sound; that’s the same.”
I forgot Joaquin was sitting beside me, nursing the last of his coffee, as I went on telling myself a familiar bedtime story. “We’d look at the stars and sing … every song the three of us knew … you know, hymns, military songs, lullabies. Songs my mother remembered from her childhood and taught me. I reckon we sounded strange together, caterwauling to the night, but about every three or four songs, we’d hit on a perfect harmony for a line or two. When that happened, it sounded like bliss come to life.”
I didn’t know if Joaquin was interested in this or not, but I went on telling the story to myself. “And then, when the dew fell and the quilt was damp and all the world smelled like wet grass, I knew it was almost time to go in, and I’d fall asleep like a rock.” I smiled at Joaquin as I finished my tale. “My father always said, ‘Get up, little one, or I’ll have to carry you to bed.’ And my mother always hurried to say, ‘Now, Joseph, you know you can’t carry a big girl like Honey. Get up, Honey, it’s time to go in. That’s a good girl.’ ”
We were quiet, listening to the night sounds that had more meaning for both of us than they had a few minutes earlier. Then, like a continuation of a story, I told him about the house. “It’s been in the family for probably a hundred years. Ever since it was built. My great-grandfather built it; he was a cotton buyer from England. His daughters, my father’s maiden aunts, lived here until they died. They loved my father, their only brother’s only child
, but when he wanted to move in with them—to take care of them as much as to have a place to live—they insisted on building that weird third story.” I looked at Joaquin with a gleam in my eye. “A man couldn’t sleep in the house, you know.”
He laughed, appreciating the story. “Of course not,” he said.
“They all three died before the addition was finished, so it was only used for my father’s office. Unofficially, of course; he was retired by that time.”
“How old were you then?”
“I wasn’t born,” I said, and then told him, as I had told Silas, about how old my parents had been when I was born. How unexpected I was. How cherished. How protected. I finished the tale with my father’s death. We sighed and smiled at the silly sentimentalism of it all. “Yes, my father loved this house.” I remembered something I hadn’t told Silas about my father’s death. “Right before he put his head down on the dining room table and died, Father said, ‘Honey, the house will take care of you.’ ”
“What do you think that meant?”
“I don’t know. I think he meant to say, ‘You take care of the house,’ but I like to think that he was telling me that the house would take care of me. That’s part of why I couldn’t sell it when Ralph approached me about it. But mainly, it’s because I love it, too.”
I took his empty coffee cup, told him good night, and went into the house, feeling its warmth reach out to me more tonight than I had since I had come home.
The Complete Honey Huckleberry Box Set Page 7