Seventeen Days

by Linda Griffin

  “I know,” she said. Danny had already changed hers.

  “Speaking of which,” he said, “as much as Danny might like a little sister, that wasn’t what I had in mind when I came over here last night.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve got it covered.” She didn’t, but there was no point in his worrying about it now. She had to give him credit for raising the subject, even if it was a little late.

  She returned to the house and worked a little on the illustrations, but her concentration was completely shattered. Rick worked steadily all morning. He kept his shirt on—the weather was cooler than it had been Friday—and he didn’t whistle. He was doing the trim, which was careful, precise work, and she imagined he didn’t want to be distracted.

  While she struggled to work, she remembered the first day she had gone into Sam’s Grocery and Violet had come in with her loud voice and big heart. Anybody doesn’t treat you right, you let me know. We don’t put up with any nonsense in San Ignacio. She put down her pencil and went into the kitchen. She had shoved the thin local phone directory into a drawer. The information was a bit outdated, but Violet’s number wouldn’t have changed. She picked up the phone, confident that whatever could be done about the rumors would be done. Rick didn’t have to know.

  At lunchtime she went out, and he was cleaning up. “Are you finished?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said without enthusiasm. “Take a look.” She walked around and surveyed the entire house. It looked so much better than it had when she arrived, fresh and clean and bright. She had made a good choice in the trim color, but now it seemed almost sinister, a vandal’s medium.

  “Thank you,” she said and gave him a kiss. “You did a beautiful job. Don’t forget to give me a bill.” He shook his head. “I know—awkward,” she said. “But business is business.” Which, of course, was why sleeping with your contractor wasn’t a good idea. He couldn’t accept payment, or she free services. “Come in and have lunch.”

  He hesitated, but there were only a few spatters of drying green paint on his shirt, so he agreed and followed her in. He sat at the table, and she busied herself with lunch preparations. “I’ll put the screens back up tomorrow,” he said. He sounded tired, and Jenna didn’t know what to say that might help. What if most of his customers stopped hiring him because they believed he was responsible for Mrs. Raymond’s death? They had joked about her earlier, but it wasn’t funny now. Words exchanged in Sam’s Grocery were now made visible in dark green paint. Might even the police come to believe them, when he had no alibi? Was he in real danger?

  “Rick,” she said. “Did you say you fixed a broken window at Mrs. Raymond’s cabin?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “How did it get broken? Could it have had something to do with her murder?”

  “I don’t think so. Violet said some kids were throwing rocks.”

  “Did you see a rock?”

  “No. Are you playing Nancy Drew?”

  “I’m trying,” she said.

  There was a knock at the front door, and a familiar voice called, “Jenna?”

  “It’s Rosalie,” she said. She quickly took the kitchen drawing down from its place near the sink and handed it to Rick. “Come in,” she called. “We’re in the kitchen.”

  When Rosalie entered, they were sitting on opposite sides of the table, the drawing spread out between them. If she had come down the hill from her house, she would have seen the pickup and shouldn’t be surprised he was there, but she stopped when she saw him, looking embarrassed.

  “Hi,” Jenna said. “Come see Rick’s plan for my kitchen.”

  “Hi,” Rosalie said tonelessly. She didn’t even glance at the drawing. She looked worried. “I don’t want to interrupt…”

  “Is something wrong?” Jenna asked.

  “Have you seen Larry?”

  “Isn’t he in school?”

  “They called and said he was absent this morning. He admired you—I thought maybe…”

  “I haven’t seen him. He played hooky?”

  “It’s not like him. But he’s been very moody lately. He’s been obsessed with the war, you know? He had a fight with Heather, and they usually get along so well.”

  “Do you know what the fight was about?” Jenna asked, wondering if it was about Rick.

  “No, but they haven’t been speaking. She says she hasn’t seen him.”

  “Have you seen him today?” Jenna asked Rick.

  “No,” he said, “but I’ll keep an eye out for him. Are you sure he didn’t go out with Mike?” he asked Rosalie.

  “Never on a school day,” she said. “I won’t allow it. He left the house as usual, and his bike is gone.”

  “He’s probably just goofing off,” Rick said, but with sympathy for her worry, one parent to another. “Do you want me to go hunt for him?”

  “No!” she said a little too emphatically. “He—he wouldn’t want you to. I thought he might come home for lunch, but he hasn’t. If he doesn’t show up soon, I’ll call Vince, and if he does, I’m going to wring his neck.” She tried to laugh, but she was too near tears. “I’d better go,” she said.

  Jenna got up and walked out with her. At the foot of the steps, Rosalie made an effort at calm and said, “The house looks great. Rick did a good job on the painting.”

  “Yes,” Jenna said briskly, like any satisfied customer.

  Rosalie, undeceived, gave her a knowing look. “Don’t let him break your heart,” she said.

  “What? Don’t be silly.” More to distract her than anything else, she asked, “Did you see what they did to his truck?”

  Rosalie stared at the pickup, puzzled. She wouldn’t have seen the vandalism unless she had approached from the road. Jenna motioned for her to follow, and they walked around to the driver’s side.

  Rosalie shuddered, and her hand went to her throat.

  “Ugly, isn’t it? I thought life here was going to be peaceful.”

  “Did he call the police?” Rosalie asked tearfully.

  “No. Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I’d better get home. Larry might call or—”

  “Let me know,” Jenna said, and Rosalie hurried away.

  She returned to the kitchen. “Is she all right?” Rick asked.

  She shook her head. “Maybe I should go over there later. She said you did a good job on the house—and I shouldn’t let you break my heart.”

  He was unperturbed. “She doesn’t miss much,” he said. “And I will buy you a gun.”

  She sighed. “Now that you’ve finished painting, you won’t have a reason to come over,” she said.

  “Except the best one,” he said. “And of course…” He held up the kitchen drawing.

  “No, Rick—”

  “It’s not as if I’ve had a lot of requests for my services lately,” he said.

  “Maybe you would if you had a phone,” she suggested.

  “Bugs you, doesn’t it?” He grinned.

  It did. It was so nineteenth century. A man with a child should want to be easily contacted. Had there been a shattering phone call in the middle of the night—“I’m sorry, Mr. Alvarez. Your wife…”? No, surely they would make such notifications in person. There was no echo of tragedy here, only quiet stubbornness. It was a clue to his character. He might be equally unreasonable on other subjects. She still suspected hostility between him and Gabe Burrows. Hadn’t he muttered something about Rick the day he put in her phone? She hadn’t been sure even then and now couldn’t remember what the words might have been.

  “Who do you think vandalized the truck?” she asked. “Could it have been Gabe?”

  Rick made a dismissive gesture. “He’s a harmless old grouch,” he said.

  “You don’t think he’s a racist?” she asked.

  “No.” He sounded not offended but almost bored. “There’s enough of that in the world. Don’t go looking for it.”

  After lunch, he finished cleaning up and used the leftover
green paint to obscure each letter on the pickup—adding still more to remove later—before he left to pick Danny up at school.

  Jenna returned to her drafting table, feeling bereft. He had said he would be back tomorrow, but they had made no definite plans. They could not spend the night or even the evening together because of Danny. She didn’t have to be told they couldn’t raise a child’s hopes of a lasting relationship until they were sure themselves. There were still a million things they didn’t know about each other, any one of which might be a deal breaker.

  She worked for a while, but soon gave up. She made a batch of cookies and took them up the hill to the Hayes house. Mike was still out fishing—he hadn’t been told Larry was truant. Nancy was unusually subdued and stayed in her room doing homework. Rosalie had called Vince Allan when Larry didn’t come home after school let out. She alternated between anger and the verge of tears. “He’s never done this before,” she said. “He’s always been a good boy.” She sat on the couch and stared unseeing at the television, where reporters talked of the Iraqi army “advancing to the rear” and low battlefield casualties, although at least twenty American soldiers had been killed by a Scud missile in a Saudi barracks. Sickened, Jenna asked if she could turn it off. Rosalie shook her head. “Larry likes to keep track of it,” she said vaguely.

  Jenna helped her with dinner preparations and stayed until almost time for Mike to come home. “Call me if you hear anything,” she said, “or if you need anything.” She walked back down the hill and put together her own dinner—even angry and distracted, Rosalie had done better—and finally settled down to serious work.

  It was nearly midnight when she went to bed, and Larry Hayes was still missing.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tuesday, February 26: Brig. Gen. Richard Neal in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, says Iraqi forces are in “full retreat” with allied forces pursuing; Iraqi POWs number 30,000-plus.

  Tuesday morning was cooler and overcast, the early spring weather put on hold. The ocean was choppy, the sky leaden.

  Rick drove to Jenna’s house after he dropped Danny at school. He was wearing black again and his tool belt. “You have no idea how sexy that getup is,” she told him and gave him a kiss. “Are you working today?”

  “I’ll put the screens back up, but what I would like to do is take some more careful measurements of your kitchen. Then we could go to the city and look at materials and have lunch in a real restaurant. What kind of food do you like?”

  “Mexican.”

  “Is that a joke?”

  “No. Mexican or Italian. But I told you I can’t do the kitchen right now. I haven’t even paid for the painting.”

  “But it won’t hurt to make plans,” he said. “It might be fun.”

  “It might be expensive. Besides, it’s two hours to the city, and Larry is missing…”

  “Still? I was sure he’d show up when school was over.”

  “He didn’t. Rosalie called the police.”

  “Okay, so they’ll have it covered. There’s nothing we can do. If we go to the city—”

  “Are you still trying to push me into remodeling the damn kitchen?”

  He sighed. “No, Jenna, I am trying, in my own apparently ineffectual way, to ask you out on a date.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “I’m afraid San Ignacio has limited entertainment options. The café isn’t bad, if you like cheeseburgers, but we would be out of place at the teen hangout, and the movie theater is closed on weekdays this time of year.” Yes, and people would talk, and there was always the possibility someone would say something to Rick about Barbara Raymond—or worse, his wife—or stare and whisper behind their backs. “There are other places to eat on the highway,” he continued, “but they’re all fast food for tourists—not what I had in mind. We could play pool at the tavern, or I could take you fishing…”

  “And you told Nancy you weren’t a romantic! Let’s stay here until we know about Larry,” she said. “But thank you, I’d love to have lunch in the city with you sometime.”

  He said he had eaten breakfast, and she had had oatmeal, so after he replaced the window screens they sat on the porch and drank coffee. The sharp, antiseptic smell of fresh paint was fading. The damp, fresh, salty air was a little too cool for her thin sweater, so he put his arm around her. They were sitting like that when Rosalie slogged down the hill.

  Jenna started to put distance between them, but changed her mind. It was too late to try to fool her neighbor, and she wouldn’t notice much of anything right now. She looked completely exhausted.

  “Oh, Rosalie, I’m so sorry,” Jenna said. “Come sit down. Let me get you a cup of coffee.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve had too much already.”

  “There’s been no word?” Rick asked.

  “None. I’m afraid they’ll find his body on the rocks like Mrs. Raymond,” she said. Jenna couldn’t say the possibility hadn’t occurred to her, but hearing his mother say the words was awful.

  “Is there anything we can do?” she asked.

  “No, I just had to get away for a while. Mike and Nancy stayed home today, and they’re driving me crazy. Mike is all macho about it, and Nancy won’t…stop…talking.” She sat down on the steps and put her head in her hands. Jenna put a comforting hand on her shoulder; it was all she could do.

  “I could drive around and see if I can find him,” Rick offered. “I know the police are searching, but…”

  “No, you can’t,” Rosalie said. “Don’t you see? He thinks you murdered Barbara Raymond. Mike does too. You’re the last person we want out looking for him.”

  Rick swore under his breath and hugged Jenna closer.

  “No, I know you didn’t do it—I don’t know why Mike is so convinced. Somebody else killed her, some lunatic, and now he has Larry.”

  “Oh, Rosalie!” Jenna couldn’t think of anything else to say. She could not imagine how Rosalie could face such a possibility even for a second.

  They were still sitting on the porch when a white car with beacon lights came down the road. It slowed as it passed, as if it was about to stop next door. A bicycle was mounted on the rack at the back. Rosalie stood up with a terrified cry and started to run up the hill.

  “No, wait!” Rick called. “He’s turning around.”

  Yes, the police car had made a U-turn and was coming back, up the driveway. Apparently the driver had seen them in front of the house. Jenna rushed to Rosalie’s side and held her still where she was, and Rick walked slowly toward the car.

  The man who got out of the driver’s seat was about fifty, heavyset, with a mustache and gray at his temples. “Vince,” Rick said.

  “Rick,” said Chief Allan. He nodded toward the pickup. “Interesting paint job.” He tipped his hat to the ladies and opened the back door of the police car. They could all see a teenage boy sitting in the back seat, head down. It was Larry Hayes.

  Rosalie broke free and would have run to him, but Allan held up a hand. “He’s okay, Rosie. You can take him home in a few minutes,” he said. “I found him up at Violet’s cabins. He’d been there all night.”

  “Barbara Raymond’s cabin,” Rick guessed.

  “The very one. We don’t have to wait for the DNA tests—he admits to having sex with her.”

  Rosalie gasped. “Larry? He’s only sixteen! You’re not saying he killed her?”

  “Oh, my God,” Jenna said. She remembered him at the barbecue, offering her a plate of food, bristling with newfound masculinity in Rick’s presence, taking offense at her remarks about the war, and stalking off to flirt with Mrs. Raymond. Jenna had humiliated him, and in front of a man he measured himself against. “It’s my fault,” she said, stunned. With a few careless words, had she transformed this boy into a murderer?

  But Vince Allan shook his head.

  “Yes!” Larry said, climbing out of the car. His clothes and hair were disheveled, his face tear-streaked, and the look in his eyes frankly murderous. Acr
oss the front of his shirt were scattered telltale specks of dark green paint. “It is your fault!” he yelled at Jenna. “You stuck-up bitch, you think you’re better than everybody else. You treated me like a baby! Mrs. Raymond didn’t think I was such a kid. She wanted me!”

  “Larry!” Rosalie said sharply, and he fell silent.

  “Apologize,” Rick said in the firm, gentle tone he might have used to Danny. “Apologize to Miss Scott, and to your mother for worrying her.”

  Larry sneered. “Oh, yeah? Who’s gonna make me—you?”

  “Nobody should have to make you do anything,” Vince Allan said reasonably. “You’re old enough to be responsible for your own actions.”

  Larry faltered. “Sorry,” he said grudgingly. He didn’t look at Jenna.

  Vince continued in a brisk, businesslike tone, “The only charges we have pending are for trespassing—that will be Violet’s call—and vandalism.” He looked at Rick.

  “I don’t care,” Larry burst out. “Put me in jail. I’m not apologizing to him.”

  “No, but you’ll pay to have the pickup repainted,” Rosalie said. “Just be glad you’re not being charged with murder.”

  “I didn’t—” he began indignantly, and Allan silenced him with a gesture.

  “He was with Mrs. Raymond earlier that day, right after she left the barbecue.”

  “No,” Rosalie said. “He was with his friends.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Allan said. “He was with her, but he was home in bed when she was murdered.”

  “By him,” Larry said, glaring at Rick. “He was jealous because she was with me, and now he’s over here all the time with her.”

  “I didn’t kill her, Larry. Who told you I did?’

  “Everybody says it. Dad, everybody.”

  “So,” Chief Allan said, regaining control of the situation. “Vandalism charges?”

  Rick shook his head.

  “Okay, Rosie, you can take him home.” And to Larry, “Don’t forget your bike.”