by Jonni Good
“Gabe,” I said, “you’re brilliant.” He grinned at the compliment.
I looked at the studio, mentally filling in the short wall, adding the door, putting a window in the storeroom to turn it into a spare bedroom. Maybe that big southern window could be taken out, and replaced with a lean-to greenhouse. Josie would really like that.
Gabe picked up a curl of newspaper that was lying under one of the Clovis people. He started to shred it into long strands. “Mort says your school lets kids make stuff. Real stuff, like the little windmill out by Josie’s trailer. He showed me how it puts the electricity in the battery and keeps her lights on. He said the kids at school get paid for making them, too. He says it isn’t real money, but the stores take it sometimes, anyway. I could learn to make things like that. It would be fun. We never get to do anything like that at my school. I want to stay here.”
Sam and I looked at each other. He held his lips compressed in a line, and I bit my lower lip.
I turned back to Gabe and said, “Has Mort showed you how to play cribbage yet?”
He grinned. “I skunked him the first time. He was letting me win, but I figured out how to do it. Next time I’ll beat him fair and square.”
ELEVEN
The kitchen smelled heavenly with the scent of baking sweet bread. Music was playing. It was coming from the little speakers Sam uses with his smart phone.
Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
It’s always been one of my favorite songs—the simplicity of it, and the melody—it tugs at my heart every time.
But this time it sounded very different. A man with a gravely, bluesy voice was singing, and a trumpet was playing softly in the background, sounding almost like a second voice. Then more male voices came in on the chorus, with tight, warm harmony.
“That’s Blue Malachi,” Sam said. “Constantin’s band. They’re good, aren’t they?”
The song ended and the music changed to an old ballad that might have originally come from Scotland, or the Appalachian mountain folk. It was done with a modern twist, with a drum beat and horns.
We plopped the luggage on the floor near the bathroom door and took off our jackets. Gabe went to the table and sat opposite Mort, and they started playing another game of cribbage.
My dog went to his toy box and selected his favorite, a raggedy brown teddy bear, and brought it back to Gabe. He tried to balance the bear on the boys thigh. Gabe looked down, gently took the offered gift, and smoothed his hand over Jocko’s head.
The boy looked up at me. “You guys have really nice dogs,” he said.
Mort growled. “Pay attention to the game. It’s your turn.”
Gabe grinned, and laid down his cards. “Fifteen two, and sixteen for the double-double run. Eighteen, total.” He moved his pegs.
“Punk,” Mort said. He shuffled the cards for the next hand, and gave me a wink.
Josie was at the other end of the table, with my laptop open in front of her. The baby was in the plastic laundry basket, on top of the mattress made with folded towels. Little Grace was giggling. Molly was standing over her with her big head down in the basket, moving her sensitive nose over as many baby parts as she could reach, and tickling the baby with her whiskers. Little arms and legs waved around, and then one tiny hand wrapped around the edge of Molly’s ear, and tugged. Josie reached down and rescued the ear. Molly settled down next to the basket, with her chin resting on the edge.
I looked in the glass window of the oven to peek at the loaf of quick bread, with the split top starting to brown. There were nuts in it, and berries. I stood back up. The coffee pot was empty.
While I was pouring water into the back of the coffeemaker, Sam’s phone rang. He answered, and then looked at the ceiling with a grimace. “No, that’s OK, Sally. If I don’t fix your furnace today, I’ll have to fix your pipes tomorrow. I’ll be right over.”
He went to the back door and pulled his jacket back on. He took his work gloves off the shelf above the coat pegs, and put his tan baseball cap back on his head.
“Where ya going?” Gabe asked.
“Sally Morgan’s furnace is on the blitz. I have to go fix it. You want to come?”
“Sure.”
“Hey,” Mort said. “We just started a game.”
Gabe’s grin evaporated, but he stayed in his chair.
Mort took pity on the boy. “Take Utah’s jacket,” he said. “You don’t want to be mucking around in Sally Morgan’s basement in your nice coat. And take a warm cap off the shelf there, and some gloves.”
Gabe jumped up and headed for the back door, where the jackets were hanging on pegs. Jocko followed him.
“Take the light brown one,” I said. “With the fleece inside.”
With their matching jackets, he and Sam looked like a matched set.
“You boys wait a minute,” Josie said. “I’ll make a couple of sandwiches. You can take them with you.” She got up from the table and dug around in the fridge for a few minutes, and came out with a loaf of home-made bread, hazelnut butter and Saskatoon jam. She quickly cut four slices of bread, and then looked at Mort. He smiled back with his tongue hanging out, mimicking Jocko, who was sitting near the fridge, acting hopeful.
She glanced at me, and I shook my head, declining. I would wait for the nut bread in the oven.
Josie cut two more slices and put three sandwiches together, and then handed them out, without bothering with plates. She tossed Jocko a small bite of bread spread with hazelnut butter, his favorite.
Sam kissed Josie on the forehead in thanks, and she waved him away. The ‘boys’ left to fix Sally Morgan’s furnace. Jocko wanted to go, too, but I made him stay. He sat by the door, and whined.
Josie sat back down in front of the laptop. I walked around behind her, to see what she was looking at. It was a government site, family court. The page had information about step-fathers getting guardianship papers after the death of a spouse. She closed the laptop when I was half-way through the first paragraph. She stood, picked the baby up out of the basket, and went to sit on the couch.
I poured myself a cup of coffee. I brought Mort a mug, too, but Josie didn’t want any. When the bell on the oven rang, she stood up and handed the baby to me. Then she went to the stove to pull out the bread. The smell of Saskatoon berries and walnuts and sugar filled the air. Jocko sat politely a few feet from the oven door, hoping for a stray crumb.
“You can’t have any yet,” Josie said to me, before I even asked. “It’s too hot. And anyway, if you and Mort start in on it, there won’t be any left for the boy.”
Which was true, of course. I thought about making myself a sandwich, but decided I could wait.
Josie retrieved the baby, and then sat on the couch and tucked her long green wool skirt around her legs. She let the baby reach up and grab her nose.
I sat down across from Mort with my back to the aromatic bread on the kitchen counter and facing Josie and the couch. I put my steaming mug of coffee on the table and pulled the folded flier out of my pocket. I unfolded it and tried to smooth it out. It was badly wrinkled, but you could still read the words. I pushed it across the table to Mort.
“Huh,” he said. “Where did this come from?”
“John Meecham left a whole stack of them at the diner. Pete Hansen says it was Laura Rey’s idea, and John Meecham has been spending a lot of time with her lately. He’s even going to church with her.”
He shook his head, then turned in his chair so he could hand the paper to Josie. She took a look at it, shook her head, and handed it back. “Laura Rey never was all that bright,” she said.
Mort put the flier on table, dismissing it as unimportant, and gave the inside of his ear a good rub. Then he reached down to give Jocko an ear rub, too, and a bite of his sandwich. Molly ambled over for her share, and she got a bite, too.
“T
he sheriff called while you were out yakking with Sam,” he said. “The coroner won’t do a full workup on the body until Monday, at the earliest, but he did a blood test and found opiates in the woman’s system. Prescription painkillers—and there was a lot of it. Not quite enough to kill her, but almost. Those things are supposed to be slow-release, to make them safe. I guess addicts can get around that by smashing the pills instead of taking them whole.”
I reached for the flier, folded it back up, and put it in my sweatshirt pocket. “Gabe said his mom didn’t use drugs.”
“The boy is only twelve years old, Utah.”
“Almost thirteen. He lives in the city. His dad is in the music industry. He watches TV. He knows more about drugs than we do.”
“Fair enough. Get me another cup of coffee, will you?”
I stood up and reached for the pot and refilled his mug. Josie still didn’t want any. I sat back down and waited for him to get around to telling us about the rest of Wally’s phone call. He sipped his coffee slowly, dragging out the wait, just for fun.
To fill in the time, I said, thinking out loud, “If Sonje was full of opiates, there’s really no point in trying to figure out why she died out by the river. How much does it take to OD on painkillers if the pills are smashed instead of taken whole?”
He didn’t answer me. He was concentrating on his coffee, probably waiting for me to shut up so he could get back to his own story.
I tried to picture how it could have happened, based on a lecture one of the volunteer firemen gave at our last community meeting. Heroin and prescription opiate overdose was a growing problem in the county. They start with the painkillers, and when they run out of money they turn to heroin, because it’s cheaper.
“Here’s how it could have happened,” I said. “The bad guy slips her the smashed pills in something he gives her to eat or drink. The opiates start to kick in after she gets back in her car. When she starts to feel weird, she stops at the diner for help, but it’s closed. Then more of the opiates reach her bloodstream, she’s disoriented, and she can’t find her way back to her car. When she falls down, she can’t get back up.”
“Maybe she took them on purpose. We have to keep an open mind.”
“Then why would she try to get into the diner?”
He shrugged. “Maybe she changed her mind.” He didn’t say it like he believed it, though. “The sheriff said they didn’t find her cell phone, and it wasn’t in the coat Molly found. The coroner did a test on that flask. It was nothing but whiskey.”
“So the husband didn’t do it,” I said. “I thought he might have figured out a way to get the drugs in that flask before she left the city. I had this whole scenario worked up, with the husband pretending to be in Europe when he was really home yesterday morning, spiking her whiskey. Or him in cahoots with the housekeeper. But I guess we have to cross him off the list.”
“Probably. Unless he’s a lot smarter than we are.” He took a few more sips of his coffee. “And they found a checkbook in the woman’s purse. One of those kind that have the carbon copies, so you don’t forget to write down your checks. I’ve been thinking about getting that kind next time, because I—”
“Mort.”
“Huh? Oh yeah. The last check was for twenty-five thousand dollars. Made out to Carol Kramer.”
I let out a whistle. He sat back with a big grin, enjoying my shock. I leaned over so I could see around Mort’s bulk, and looked at my mother. She was equally impressed. Mort had his back to her and had to turn around to enjoy her reaction. That’s one of the main problems with using my kitchen when there’s more than two people in the room. She got up and came to the table and sat at the end, holding the baby up against her shoulder.
Mort now had the full attention of his audience. “Thing is, though, there weren’t any signs of a struggle at the scene, and the coroner didn’t find any on the body, either. He’s still going to do an autopsy, but he doesn’t expect to find anything else that will be very useful. His preliminary report says it was death by misadventure. It leaves him a little wiggle room, because that can also mean she did something stupid that put her at risk.”
He passed his hand over his bald head, and then continued. “I don’t think Wally told the reporters about the note they found in her purse, but I checked the main news sites on your laptop while Sam and Gabe were out with Molly. Some of them are saying it was suicide, some are saying she was a drug addict. It’s not pretty.”
“Yes,” I said. “Angie saw the same thing on TV.”
He stood up. “Mildred said the preacher knew Gwyneth was coming this weekend. I think we need to go see him next.”
“You stay here with the baby,” I said. “Josie and I should go. She knows John Owen a lot better than you do.”
I expected Mort to complain about getting left out, but his face split into a grin. He walked to the end of the table and reached for the baby. Josie tried to resist, but he took Grace anyway. He put the baby upright so she could see over his shoulder. “Me and the little one will have a good time. You two run along and talk to the preacher. Don’t worry about us. I know how to change a diaper if I have to.”
Josie stood and glared first at Mort, then at me. “I still don’t think your so-called investigation is a good idea. It’s not like when you tried to find out who killed poor Larry Webb.”
I reminded her that she helped us find out who killed the real estate agent. “And since when did we start calling him ‘poor’ Larry Webb? You couldn’t stand the guy.”
“That’s not the point, and you know it.”
“What is the point?” I asked. “I really don’t know what you’re upset about.”
“There’s a child involved this time.” She stuck her chin out stubbornly, and looked off to the side.
“Right …”
“He’s getting too attached to Sam,” she said. “Stick around, help the boy deal with his loss, and then let him go home with his father and get on with his life. It’s the right thing to do.”
I looked over her head for a few beats, at a knot in the loft railing. Then I brought my head back down and looked her in the eye.
I said, in my most diplomatic voice. “I’m still going to talk to the pastor. I would very much like you to come with me.”
She kept looking at me sternly, with her fists at her waist and her elbows jutting out, but I stood my ground. She’s half a head shorter than I am, and my arms were crossed over my chest.
She knew I wouldn’t budge, so she said, “All right, I’ll come with you. But if you hurt that boy, it will be on your conscience.” She twirled around and stalked to the back door to get her coat.
I looked at Mort. He shrugged. No help from him.
When Josie had her coat on, he went to her, reached out, and pulled her to him, being careful to not squish the baby. He planted a big kiss on her lips. She tried to pull away, then gave in and kissed him back.
I put on my yellow coat and walked out of the kitchen into the museum. She followed me. “Thank you for getting my jacket out of the dryer,” I said.
She didn’t answer.
TWELVE
Jocko stayed with Mort. Josie and I took my little pickup to the General Baptist church on Andersen Street, about five blocks away from the museum. The tall wooden door of the old church faces east, and it’s set into the bell tower just deep enough to give the impression of offering protection from the weather, without really helping very much. The church was built in the early 1900s. If there was a bell in the tower, I never heard it ring.
Josie and I went in, took off our snow-covered boots inside the door, and padded down the central aisle in our stocking feet. The door to the church office was on the left side of the back wall, behind the altar.
Years ago, an ill-conceived remodeling job dropped the ceiling to save on heating costs, so it no longer followed the steep angle of the roof. The highest point of the ceiling now rests a few inches above the curved stained glass window set int
o the eastern wall.
Almost every year, someone petitions to have the ceiling raised to its original height, but with the dwindling, aging congregation, there’s never enough money—and besides, most of the parishioners can’t see the point. It’s been like that for years, so why change it now?
I turned around to look at the window, and I experienced a déjà vu moment. I’d been in the church before, of course, but this time I was remembering that same low ceiling and that same window from Sonje McCrae’s latest fantasy novel. It was in the middle of an exciting section of the plot, so I didn’t notice the resemblance when I read the book earlier that year.
I was sure she described the window perfectly, right down to the red and yellow fleur-de-lis at the top. Sonje McCrae must have had a photographic memory.
She used the low ceiling to add a sense of foreboding to the scene. To me, it just looked sad, a beautiful design destroyed by good intentions.
We walked down the aisle between wooden pews. The varnish was worn through on the backs of the pews from worshipers’ hands, showing light wood underneath.
We knocked on the office door and heard the pastor invite us in. He gestured toward the two chairs in front of his old wooden desk, and we sat. He offered coffee from a pot sitting on a hotplate on the sideboard. I accepted, Josie declined.
“Would you prefer tea?” he asked.
Again, Josie declined. The pastor poured a mug of coffee for me, and one for himself.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, when he was once again sitting behind his desk. He wore a black turtleneck sweater under a brown tweed jacket, with suede leather patches on the elbows. His black hair was thinning and turning white at the temples, and static electricity made the wispy tendrils stand out from his head. The static wasn’t coming from his powerful spiritual presence, but from the nylon carpet in the church. Female parishioners have been complaining about the carpet for years.