Unlocking the door and opening it, a blast of cool desert air streamed into Georgette’s face. She smelled the muddy, adobe earth mixed with a strong whiff of the jasmine that vined along the side of her driveway. The delicate star-shaped flowers intoxicated a few bees who alighted languidly as they collected powdery mustard-colored pollen along their legs and underbellies.
But the cool, heavy air made her skin prickle and she wrapped her arms around her.
Before going back inside, she notice the garage door was still up. Georgette realized that Helen could have come, cleaned out whatever was in there of hers and left without closing the garage—no matter how insistent Georgette had been about closing it.
Instantly, her face went hot with anger. “Stupid cow.”
She slammed the kitchen door and once again thought she heard the muffled sound of a cat’s mew. “Gangster!” She said as she swung the door open fast. Not wanting to give up on the search, she thought she heard him again. She closed the door behind her.
The sound pulled her closer to the garage.
She looked around. After yelling his name, everything seemed to go deaf again, even birds and bees seemed to halt.
Turning one way then the other, she remembered she had never once looked inside the garage. But, why would she? He couldn’t have possibly gotten into the garage without letting him in. “Gangster,” she repeated.
Once again, nothing. The mewing stopped when she called him.
In an instance she realized that was how it had been for the last two nights. Whenever she heard him crying, she would call his name, making him think that she was coming for him, making him stop calling to her.
Just inside the door of the garage, she froze. She barely took in air. Looking from one side of the garage to the other, she remained quiet. The place was sparse except for a worktable, the garbage and recycling cans and a set of storage cabinets marked “BD-Files” where Bobby had stored old diner information. There was a combination lock through the hasp that locked its doors. The lock was new. The lock hadn’t been there before. It was the only thing out of place. Her eyes latched onto the cabinet. “Oh no! Gangster.”
She heard a shred of noise from that direction and ran over to the cabinet. “Gangster?”
He cried. It was him. She’d heard him distinctly, his meow, a meow that broke Georgette’s heart.
“Oh my lord! Gangster! How did you …” She trailed off as she examined the lock. She didn’t know the combination.
But. Wait.
She did know the combination.
The four numbers on Helen’s note. They meant something!. She had to find that note. Running off, yelling behind her, she called out, “Gangster. I’ll be back, honey!”
Nearly slipping on the Saltillo kitchen tile, she hung onto the door for only a moment when she ran into the house. Then she ran down the hall and into her bedroom. To the waste bucket. To the note.
She uncrumpled the wad of paper. 2 8 1 4.
She ran back through the hall through the kitchen, out the door and back into the garage
“Gangster!” The cat mewed inside the cupboard. “I’m here, honey.” Through her panicked breathing, she repeated, “I’m here.” It had been nearly three days that he’d been locked inside the cabinet. Her hands shook as she held the lock in them. She stared down at its black face trimmed in a neat circle of white numbers, spaced in increments of five, beginning with the number zero and ending at thirty-nine.
She tried twenty-eight first, then one, then four. The lock remained tight. But maybe it was because her hands were shaking terribly. She tried the combination again. Twenty-eight, one, four. Nothing.
She paused and breathed in then out. Then she stopped and took one deep breath and let it out slowly.
Georgette examined the lock again and knew the only plausible next set of numbers. Two, eight and fourteen.
She turned to the right to two and then, slowly passing by the eight, she landed there on the next pass. She paused and took in a deep breath again. Gangster let out a low groan. “Okay, honey. I’m here. Just hold on a little longer, baby.” She turned the dial slowly, slowly enough to know she hadn’t made a mistake. She stopped. Then she pulled hard, once. The lock unlatched.
Fumbling with the thing through the hasp’s looping metal felt grueling. She finally got it off and pulled the door open wide.
Gangster stumbled out. Yowling, objecting, he sat down only a foot outside of his jail. He was gaunt and visibly weakened. He needed water. He needed a can of catfood.
A waft of foul air struck her. The odor from the cabinet stung her eyes. It had been his bed and cat box for three days.
Georgette dropped the lock onto the concrete floor, startling the cat but scooped him up into her arms, holding him tighter than she probably should have and cooing to him how she missed him.
She sped back into the house.
He needed rehydration and food.
22
Georgette stood embarrassed in front of the jeweler. Sunnydale was a small town. She was sure everyone already knew about how her and Hawthorne’s relationship fell to pieces before getting started. She tried to shoo the thoughts out of her head, concentrating instead on the fact she’d found her lost cat.
“Oh, now, let me see that gorgeous thing.” Paul Kessler examined the ring through his eyeglass and paused.
“Can you give me an idea of how much I might get for it, Paul?” Georgette’s eyes looked puffy and owlish from the make-up she had applied, trying to hide the fact that she’d been crying.
Paul had owned Sunnydale’s finest jewelry store since before computers came into fashion. Georgette often thought he looked an awful lot like Mark Twain with his wild white hair and moustache. The band around his head with a single magnifying glass for viewing jewels seemed almost for show since he used his loupe instead. He flipped each layered lens of the loupe out in succession squeezing one eye tight for a better view. Then, in quick succession, he closed each layer again—one, two, three. He rose up straight when he finished the inspection of the Georgette’s engagement ring, the one Hawthorne had given her.
It had been a difficult decision to redeem the ring for cash. It felt cheap, but then she thought about how she might use the money—for employee bonuses, for new linens for the tables.
She tussled between giving the ring back which meant having to see Hawthorne or cashing it in. She decided cashing it in seemed right.
Yet, still, as she stood in the jewelry store, she vacillated. She cursed herself thinking that she’d already decided. But maybe not, not really as it turned out after all.
There she was not sure again if cashing in the ring was the right decision. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was too soon. She didn’t want to keep his ring, or anything else that reminded her of him in the house. She certainly didn’t want to ever meet up with him again, to see him face to face and give the thing back. She supposed she could mail it to him. She didn’t know what to do, not really. And, just as she was thinking she of how she might mail it, of all the possibilities, Paul spoke.
“Georgette.” He extended the last syllable of her name far too long.
“Oh. Yes?” Jolted, she looked at him, surprised.
“This here pretty little ring is, um, I’m afraid to say, not worth very much.”
“What?”
“This here stone,” he didn’t even say gem, “is what we call a cubic zirconium.” He handed the ring back to her. She took it almost involuntarily, staring at it the whole time.
“But, he said it was worth…” She closed her eyes, realizing Hawthorne had played her again. She tried to regain some sense of decorum, her embarrassment flushing red over her face. “Oh. My goodness. Thank you, Paul.” A fake smile (one she assumed to match the ring) cracked the corners of her mouth. “Well, this is quite a shock. I’m so sorry to have wasted your time.” She wondered if the freckles over her cheeks had disappeared in the hot red mask she felt cover her face. “How embarrassin
g.” Her hand came up to cover her mouth.
“Not at all, Georgette.” He stood at the glass counter with both hands on top of it. He had seen plenty of this she guessed, over the years. “It’s a beautiful setting, probably worth a good five hundred in metal. If you’d like, I can give you that. Like I said, it’s a beautiful setting.”
And it was that simple. The decision. Giving it back or keeping it.
“That would be wonderful, Paul. Thank you. He said it was worth...” Why bother finishing her sentence when it didn’t warrant repeating?
Paul side-stepped over to the cash register a foot or so from where they stood, pressed one key, the machine dinged and he counted out five, hundred-dollar bills. Pressure had built into her cheeks and it was beginning to consume her nose and threatening to spread into her eyes like a match on alcohol. She felt an urge to cry come up so quickly that she had to repeat in her head, “don’t cry” five times in quick succession. She pressed her fingers into her eye sockets and focused on her breathing, trying to assuage the potential onslaught of tears that was building.
Paul gave glanced from her to the register then walked nearer to her waving the money in his hand.
“Here you go.” He said.
Georgette wondered if he could tell she was going to crumble at any moment.
As he counted the money into her hand, he added, “Let me just write you up a receipt and you can be on yer way.” He bent down, taking his eyes off her for a second to pull out a packet of receipts. He wrote the appropriate information down, giving her time to collect herself.
He pulled off the carbon copy and handed it to her with a smile that widened over a set of tea-stained teeth.
“Thanks, Paul.”
“My pleasure. It’s always a pleasure doing business with you, Georgette, always. Come back anytime.”
“Thanks, Paul,” she repeated, not able to get any other phrase out that might come to mind. She folded the receipt into the stack of bills and pressed the whole thing into her jeans pocket. When she looked up, she gave Paul another short smile.
23
“I don’t know, Roberta. I didn’t go in there. I haven’t been in the garage for days.” Georgette fiddled with the cushion on the chair that sat in front of Roberta’s desk. The city hall buzzed today with people walking up and down the corridors. It felt like all of Sunnydale had shown up. Someone barked out the word, “Now!” Down a few offices from what Georgette could determine. Roberta got up, closed the door and then went back around her desk and sat.
They both paused after the interruption. “Well, um, how do you think he got…”
“Like I said, I don’t know.” She bit her thumb nail. “You know, Roberta…”
“Mayor?” Roberta’s administrative assistant called through the phone’s intercom. “Phone call, line one, for you.”
“Kelly. Can you take a message? I’m right in the middle of something.”
Roberta stared into Georgette’s eyes as she spoke and mouthed “sorry” to her after she finished speaking.
“Mayor, it’s the police department. Said it’s kinda urgent.”
“Okay, Kelly. Will you tell them to hold for just one second? I’ll be right with them.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The call beeped through. “Sorry, George, but I better take this.”
“Should I wait, or should I leave?”
“No, please wait. It shouldn’t take long.”
When Roberta picked up the call and began to talk, Georgette realized how long it had been since she’d been in her office. The building had been erected in the early 1930’s and still had the original red brick walls inside and out but the interior brick had been painted with several layers of white or light green or blue depending on the year and the color du jour. The latest color gleamed a glossy milk-colored paint and, depending on where you sat in the room, looked either eggy or chalky in color. The room stunk of brand new commercial-grade glued-down carpeting. The synthetic smell did battle with the scent of Roberta’s favorite perfume, Beautiful by Estee Lauder.
From inside Roberta’s office with the door closed, Georgette noted a muted thrumming. Outside, the day was churning up a mix of storm clouds. As Georgette looked around at the fake leather seats on rolled wooden chairs, Roberta’s conversation took on a more serious tone which took Georgette’s mind off the updated, contemporary look of her office.
“But, because there was no ID on the body, you’re not sure, are you, Willard?... Yes. I’ll let her know... She’s right here… Yeah… call you back.”
Georgette’s brow wrinkled and she tipped her head at Roberta. “What’s goin’ on?”
“Crap. Georgette.” She shook her head, delaying what she needed to say, what she needed to tell her. “It’s not good, George.”
“Yeah.”
“The police got a call this morning.” Roberta paused then added, “At the Extended Stay Lodge.”
Georgette cocked her head, frowning, not understanding. “Okay …” her voice drifted off to spur Roberta to finish explaining.
“It was a homicide call, George.”
“What? A homicide? In Sunnydale?” Georgette’s face seemed to pucker all at once when she asked.
Roberta’s face looked white, almost expressionless. If Georgette hadn’t detected the terror in her eyes, she might not have made the connection. Roberta’s gaze drifted to her desk, directed at nothing in particular, trying to find something, anything, then bounced back up her eyes reconnected with Georgette’s. Finally, Georgette got an inkling of what she might be alluding to.
“Wait.” She paused. “No.” She paused again. “Oh, man. Roberta. Why are you telling me this?”
“You need to come with me, George. We need to go right now.”
“To the lodge? No. Why?”
Her inflection swung her words into a high pitch . She couldn’t believe she had to go to a crime scene.
“We have to make the identification.”
“Oh, heavens. Roberta. No. I don’t think you need me to…” Georgette pushed against the back of the chair like a wild, cornered animal, shaking her head.
“We have to, George.” Roberta stood collecting her purse and her attaché. She pulled her suit jacket off the back of her chair and swung it around her shoulders, putting each arm through a sleeve. “We have to… now.”
A dull silence lay between them. Roberta stood strong in front of Georgette, who remained seated.
Then, as if avoiding the question might protect her, she finally spoke. “Identify who?”
Roberta picked up both her bags into one hand, then picked up Georgette’s and handed it to her. She grabbed Georgette by the arm, lifting her off the chair in the same movement. Roberta pulled Georgette close and held her around the shoulder and led her out of the office. Then, as she flicked off the light and pulled the door closed, she simply said, “Helen.”
24
The drive was only five minutes from Roberta’s office but their silence made it feel like hours. As the car approached the hotel parking lot, Georgette saw that the sun had dropped to the other side of noon, away from the coming storm. Shadows fell long on the side of the hotel where what seemed like a mile of yellow crime scene tape was strung.
Roberta parked about one hundred paces from the first police car—one intended to block nosy people from entering. Every local knew every other local in Sunnydale and they needed to keep the interlopers of their small town out. Still, the law was more lenient for a local than for someone who might be passing through. That’s why they wouldn’t flinch when they saw Georgette approaching to identify Helen’s body. People knew that Georgette was one of Helen’s closest relations since Mayor Pyle died.
After turning the engine off, she flicked open the locks on her attaché and pulled out a badge designating her official purpose for being there. Pinning it to her lapel, she instructed Georgette, “Okay. Look. This is going to be awful. There’s no way of saying it nicer than that.” Georgette didn’t
expect less from Roberta who continued, “They will unzip the bag. You look once. Then, you turn your head as soon as you see the face. Hear me?”
Georgette stared blankly into her eyes.
“Georgette. You hear me?” She nodded. “Okay. So, tell me what you’re going to do.”
“Oh my, Roberta.”
“Tell me, George. If anything needs to be practiced, this does. Tell me.”
“They’ll unzip the bag. I’ll look once,” when Georgette said once, Roberta held one finger up, pressing it at her. “And as soon as I see the face, I’ll turn my head away.”
“Good.” They looked at each other. “Once.” Roberta’s face seemed unusually calm to Georgette who couldn’t seem to get her eyes to blink.
“Maybe it’s not her.”
Roberta sat back in her seat. Then grabbed the door handle and pulled. “Maybe.”
She looked back at Georgette but Roberta’s face made Georgette realize that the body belonged to no one other than Helen. She started to cry. “I can’t.”
“You have to. I can’t. I’m involved since the police work for the mayor. They need someone independent of the office.” She stood outside with the door open. “You have to quit crying.”
Georgette pushed open the heavy door and stepped in line after Roberta. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I’m sorry.” She was the unofficial party here yet everyone knew her.
Willard saw Roberta’s car and walked past the first police car in a half-trot. “Mayor.” He nodded to Roberta then turned his attention to Georgette, “Mrs. Carlisle.”
She’d forgotten how formal people were in circumstances like this.
“Willard.” When she said his name, he frowned. Roberta turned quickly. “It’s Police Chief, George.”
“Oh Willy. I’m sorry, Willard, uh, Police Chief. I’m so sorry.”
Hotter than Helen (The Bobby's Diner Series) Page 8