FIFTEEN
That was Saturday.
On Sunday, as I was cleaning and airing the war room—maybe a week off to sort out things wasn’t so bad after all—I caught a glimpse of Joaquin working in the garden. He straightened up as I called out of the open window, “It’s Sunday. Don’t you ever rest?”
Even from the upstairs window, I could tell he was laughing as he searched the windows for me. I flashed my dust cloth in front of the screen so he could see me from below. He waved and yelled back, “Tell the nurseries. They’re open today, and I couldn’t wait to get started.”
“I’ll be down in a little while with some iced tea,” I answered.
He waved again and bent back to his task of unloading something from a wheelbarrow.
Before I could finish my dusting and follow through on my promise, I heard him talking to someone, and I once again looked out the window. Silas was standing there, his sport coat thrown over his shoulder and held idly with one finger, while he talked to Joaquin. They seemed relaxed together, smiling and gesturing at first the garden and then at the house.
They were both about the same size, tall and comfortable with their bigness. There was a certain grace about the way they moved, a lyrical quality to their actions that I realized I appreciated as I finally closed the huge stained pine doors of the closet. You just had to feel safe with them around.
Joaquin demurred when I asked him in and drank the huge glass of iced tea from the back steps, but Silas came inside to drink his. “That Joaquin is something else, isn’t he?”
“Yes, I like him,” I said as I hurried out to give Joaquin a second glass.
“Does that mean that you’ve changed your mind about letting him stay upstairs?” Silas asked when I came back to the kitchen.
“No, it just means that he seems to be a good man, and he is definitely a hard worker. I reckon flowers will be blooming tomorrow morning in appreciation of his efforts, if nothing else.”
“But you don’t trust him as a roomer?”
I sat across from him at the small table, his black loafers taking up the same room under it that Joaquin’s boots had the night before. There was barely room for my small tennis shoes, but I was determined I was going to face him while I talked.
My finger caught the drops of moisture that blossomed on the side of my drink and I played with them, rubbing the wetness around the glass while I searched for the right words. “Silas … this is going to sound silly, but I have to say it. It’s not Joaquin. He does seem to be a nice man … a respectable person. Certainly competent. Ralph was lucky to find him, but … Silas, I’m not used to all this. I’ve been alone for so long, but it isn’t even that.”
His blue eyes told me I had his interest, but that as I feared, I wasn’t making much sense.
I tried again.
“Everything I do—everything I’ve done the past ten years—has been on a schedule … for a reason … and this disruption—the phone call, Steven Miller’s death, strangers in my house and in my yard …” I pointed to him at my table and then to Joaquin in the garden. “It’s not that I’m not grateful; it’s that it’s too much. None of it seems real. It’s not my life. It’s more like one of the books I sell, and it’s not my story.”
Silas gently caught my hand and wiped the moisture from my fingers with his. “I’m real,” he said.
I jumped up and ran to the sink. He stood up and followed me. I didn’t know what to do. I could handle my relationship with Harry—he was far away and real only when I chose for him to be—but I could tell this big man in my kitchen wanted to kiss me, and I didn’t think I could handle it. Oh, lord, whatever did I do to deserve such a plethora of men in my life? Some women look their whole lives for just one good man. And here I had two. Three? Was the fourth Steven good? I thought of Joaquin in the backyard. Four?
Silas surprised me by just putting one of those huge hands on my neck and rubbing it in a circular motion. “You’re upset,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” He turned away and sat down again. “I do think about you a lot … and not just about the murder. You’re different.” His voice changed. “But you’re right. Let’s keep it business for now. I was wrong about all the reports; it’ll be late tomorrow before they’re all in. We might be excited over Miller’s murder, but the system isn’t.” He gave a sarcastic laugh.
Whatever was between us was gone. He was Detective Sampson again, and after telling me to let him know if I changed my mind about Joaquin, he got up to leave.
I walked him outside—out the back so he could wave bye to Joaquin, and after he was gone, I stood watching the gardener put some white stuff in the loosened dirt in three of the freshly dug beds.
“Bone meal.”
“What?”
“Bone meal. Food for the irises. I’ll have them planted by tomorrow.”
“And I’ll guess they’ll bloom the day after,” I said, remembering my earlier joke with Silas.
Joaquin laughed. “No, but hopefully by next year. Irises make up their own mind when it’s time for them to bloom.” He mixed more bone meal in with the soil and said, “But this helps them make their decision.”
I was walking away when he asked, “Miss Huckleberry?”
“Yes.”
“What do want in the other bed?” He indicated a long, rectangular patch behind the gazebo.
“More irises?”
“No, won’t balance. And besides, irises have a limited blooming period. I chose them because I like them and I know them. You need something else here. Something that will flower all spring and summer. Some kind of mix.”
“I’ll think about it, Joaquin. I’m tired now.” Before I turned, I added, “See you tomorrow,” so he wouldn’t be expecting a repeat of last night.
I had the feeling he was watching me all the way to the house.
When I had finally finished unpacking the car, I brought in the package of cheese-and-crackers I’d bought on my wild ride home Thursday night; those and a glass of milk were all I wanted for supper. I carried them up on a tray and settled in bed to eat and read the latest issue of Publishers Weekly, trying to regain some of the professionalism I seemed to have lost the last few days.
It was dark outside, about eighty-thirty, when the phone rang. I let it ring so long before answering that the machine kicked in before I picked up the receiver. “I’m here,” I said over the sound of my own voice saying I wasn’t. “Wait till this stops and I can hear you.”
“Honey.”
“Why didn’t you call yesterday?”
“You seemed to be doing all right.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
“Well, Mr. Know-it-all, I guess you know I didn’t tell the police you’d called again.” Then I asked the question I’d wanted to ask for three days. “Steven, you didn’t kill Steven Miller, did you?”
He just said, “No.” But I believed him, or maybe I had to believe him.
“You were here,” I said still accusing, wanting more.
“Yes.”
“In my bed.”
“Yes. I’m sorry I left a mess. I hadn’t intended to. None of it worked out like I had planned it.”
“What did happen?” I asked.
“I was on the phone to you. I had been reading … your itinerary and some other papers—”
“How dare you!” I said, angry all over again.
“Hush,” he interrupted. “I’ll tell you about that later. Now you need to know this. I knew from reading your schedule that you were in Alice, so I called.” He paused and then said, “Well, you know how that went. After you hung up on me, I fell asleep. No apologies, I was tired. When I woke up, it was late. Later than I thought it was. It was dark outside, and unthinkingly, I turned on the light to get your number again. I was going to call you back in Alice. I wanted to tell you everything.”
I couldn’t resist, “About time,” I said.
“No. Listen. It was raining, but I t
hought I heard a noise downstairs, so I turned off the light and crept to the top of the stairs. There was someone down there.”
“Steven Miller,” I said.
“No, he came later. I couldn’t remember if the steps creaked or not, so I took off my shoes—”
“You had your shoes on in my bed?”
“Honey, are you going to listen or not?”
“I’m sorry, Steven. I’m nervous.”
“Well, I was, too. I could hear someone in the dining room, so I sat down on the top stair and started scooting down the steps.
I could see it in my mind’s eye. The dark, the rain with the lightning flashes. Someone creeping around my dining room, feeling their way around the table, my mother’s piano. And Steven slipping down the stairs on his backside, one step at a time.
“Just as I reached the curve in the landing, I heard another sound. Someone coming in the back door.”
“That was Steven Miller.”
“Right. And whoever else was in the house heard him, too. Miller might have thought he was being quiet, but he wasn’t. The first man went into the living room, and when Miller entered, he called out to him, but when Miller answered, ‘Who the hell are you?’ the other man shot him.”
“Steven, what did the man say to Steven Miller?”
“Honey, that’s what is so strange. I’d swear he called out, ‘Lydia?’ If your real name is Honey, why did you tell me it was Lydia? And how did that other man know to ask if it was Lydia? Who is Lydia?”
I ignored his question, but now I knew why Steven Miller had called out my fantasy name in the dark. “What happened after Steven Miller was shot?”
“The guy ran out of the house. Maybe he thought the shot would be heard; I can’t imagine how it could have been. It was thundering, and there’s no one around for blocks.”
“If he’d only seen the house at night, he might not know that,” I said, trying to imagine what the neighborhood would look like at night to a stranger. No one I knew would break into my house.
“Why didn’t you help Steven Miller?”
“He was dead, Honey.”
“No, he wasn’t. He talked to me when I got home.”
“He did? What did he say?”
“About what you said happened.”
“I thought he was dead. I don’t have much experience with dead people. He didn’t seem to be breathing, and there was blood everywhere. I turned on the light.”
“You might have been caught.”
It was Steven’s turn to be indignant. “I wouldn’t have left someone I could help. I’m not the monster you seem to think I am, Honey. And what kind of a name is Honey?”
“It’s my kind of a name,” I said proudly and a little hurt. “Anyway, what happened then?”
“That’s all. Miller was dead. Or I thought he was. Looked dead to me,” he defended. “So, I found my shoes and left.”
“You left the light on or off?”
“On, I guess. I told you I wasn’t a pro at this.”
The lights were off when I had entered the house, but then all the lights in the house were out and I had been in the kitchen with the policewoman when the electricity had returned.
“Steven, I feel that I’ve come into a very bad movie at the end, and I can’t figure out the beginning.”
“So do I.”
“Let’s start over. Really start over this time. Who are you? And why are you in danger?”
SIXTEEN
All my life, I’ve tried to live up to the expectations of my mother and father. Well, at least of my father; I don’t remember my mother wanting me to be anything but quiet. But bless her heart, it wasn’t her fault. No one ever actually told me that Mother’s poor health was due to her having a baby so late in life. Maybe she’d been ill before I was born, but I don’t think so.
The house was always dark; that’s why the pattern in the carpets hasn’t faded. The shades were kept drawn to keep the sunlight from giving Mother another migraine—one of those sick headaches where I’d tiptoe around the house or retreat to my room with a book. I’d come out only long enough to redampen the folded cloth made of an old, torn sheet that she kept on her forehead in her darkened room.
My father would sit for hours and read to her, holding the book down low in front of him so he could catch a ray of light at the bottom of her bedroom shade. I’d bring my pillow and lie on the floor and listen to his voice read the classics they both loved so much.
On good days—days Mother felt well—we’d get in the Chevrolet and drive around town. Just a few blocks. Maybe go to the grocery store. And if she really felt good, we’d drive to Forest Park and I’d ride the merry-go-round, feeling grand and waving to show everybody I had parents who cared enough about me to bring me to the park and who would wave back when the horse passed their way. Once a woman holding her little girl onto the horse next to me said, “Look quick now, there’s your grandma waving at you. Wave back. What a sweet little girl you are. And so lucky to have such good grandparents.” And when I realized she was talking to me, I’d followed her gaze and had seen what she was seeing: a gray-haired old couple, he holding himself straight with the aid of a cane and she stoop-shouldered and bent, but with such a sweet smile on her face as she waved her lace handkerchief at the carousel.
As the horses swung out of their sight, I’d turned in my saddle, looking back to see to whom they were waving.
When the horses stopped, I’d run back to them with tears in my eyes, and sobbing, I’d thrown my arms around them both.
“Why, Honey, what’s the matter?” Father had asked.
“Too much excitement,” Mother had answered. “Joseph, we’d better take this girl home.”
And it had been a long time before we’d gone to the park again.
I’d tried so hard to be good, to do what I was supposed to do, and when I’d had an inclination to run or shout, I’d suppressed it while wondering if I was adopted because, if my parents were so good and gentle, why did I have this frantic need to race and be free? I felt I must really be bad to want something else, and I worked hard to discipline myself to accept and do good.
And it had worked. Even ten years after their deaths, I respected my parents and their lives, even to leaving the furniture in exactly the same positions it had occupied in their lifetimes, shades drawn tightly against the light, and the house so quiet that I only could hear the television when I was sitting close to the screen.
It was only on the road that I felt free to turn the radio up loud, roll down the windows, let the wind blow my hair, and to go barefoot in the sand. I wasn’t crazy; I just knew which behavior was right for the house and which was inappropriate.
But there were changes going on. First, I had let them change the yard, now the garden. My daring life away from the house was catching up to me. I even had a series of Fire novels hidden under my bed.
And all this before the first phone call.
I could understand why the mystery of the fourth Steven had found me ready and vulnerable.
And as I lay in my bed, holding the telephone and inhaling the odor of a strange man who had also lain on my bed, I listened to his story with wonder. It was so bizarre I might have been listening to my father reading a tale again to my mother. I had believed every word my father had ever said, and I believed Steven in the same way.
Maybe if my life had been different or if I were ever to live it again, I would have been or could be a great detective or fortune-teller. Why else had I torn out that story of an explosion in Italy? Why did I tell Janie that I felt the explosion in Florence was related to the phone calls?
For they were. My fourth Steven was a scientist. No, a chemist who had invented … discovered—I don’t know all the terminology—the formula for an alternate fuel, one that was so perfect in every way that he and it were destined for success and all its accompanying rewards.
Then his story took a sinister turn. He had been betrayed by someone. He’d arrived at
the laboratory one night to find it in flames, his notes, even the computer disks consumed by the sweeping fire. Angry and in despair, he ran into the blazing room where he accosted an intruder who had obviously set the fire. He still had an acetylene torch in his hands.
The man had said, “Well, you’ve just written your own death warrant.” He’d dropped the torch and pulled out a gun. “They told me if you were here, to kill you, too. Your luck’s run out. Now you won’t live to see your experiment fail. You’re going to die with it.”
But just at that moment, something on the counter had exploded, and a fiery liquid had painted the arsonist’s face. He dropped the gun he was holding as he clawed his head, trying to stop the spreading flames. He fell to the ground, hitting his temple on the remains of the counter.
As the fire continued to surround him, Steven had only enough time to search the man’s topcoat, taking from it an old piece of white folded paper before he realized the necessity of escaping.
Outside in the clear air, he wandered away from the scene, and dazed, he read the hand-scribbled note he still held in his hand. Though still reeling from the shock of the fire and the enormous loss, he’d comprehended the danger he had been in—the danger he was still in if his enemies knew he was alive.
Steven’s story was so well told that I felt like I was listening to one of the popular books on tape that I played on every trip I made. I had lost a sense of reality until he called my name. “Honey, the note I found, that was where I got your number.”
“My number? No, Steven.”
“Yes, and the poem. Listen. I’ll read it to you. ‘Say: This Is Steven. Then say: How Far Is It Called To The Grave? Correct answer: It is Only a Life, Dear Friend. If correct answer is given, report the status of the negotiations. Hang up. Your job is finished. Collect as usual.’ ”
“My God,” I said.
“I did as it said, and I got you on the phone. All I want to know is why, Honey?”
“And it was my phone number?” I asked incredulously.
“Well, that’s the rough part. Remember I told you there were two numbers? One is almost indecipherable, but I’ve tried what I think is the number, and it’s not in service. The other one—yours—is the legible one and the one that works. That’s why I called you.”
The Complete Honey Huckleberry Box Set Page 8