Somewhere Along the Way

by Jodi Thomas

  “Am I dead?” she asked, thinking of all the times the kind middle-aged man had helped her bury first her parents, then three of her husbands.

  He smiled, that polite smile that hinted he might have heard the question a few thousand times before. “No, Miss Martha Q, you look very much alive to me.”

  “Well, if I’m not dead, you must have come to call, and I’d better tell you, Tyler Wright, I’m too old for you and even if I was willing to take a chance on you, I wouldn’t. You see, I kind of like being a widow. It’s easier to spell than divorcée and I don’t have to share the bathroom or the remote with anyone.”

  His grin was real. “I’m here to ask a favor. I’d never come to call, Miss Martha, ’cause you and I both know I’d never have a chance.”

  She took the compliment with a nod and said, “Name your favor. I’ll help any way I can.”

  An hour later Stella McNabb brought a rail-thin woman to Martha’s door. Tyler had told Martha all about Mrs. Biggs. When she’d helped out in the small kitchen at the funeral home, she’d been unbelievable. Stella had brought a roast for the six family members who were supposed to attend the funeral. When they counted close to thirty at the funeral, Stella fretted and Mrs. Biggs went to work. She cut up the roast, threw in vegetables, and made the best stew even Stella McNabb, a retired homemaking teacher, had ever tasted. While the family went to the graveside service, Mrs. Biggs made cornbread and chocolate pies. Tyler and Stella decided right then that the woman would be perfect to work at Winter’s Inn Bed-and-Breakfast.

  Martha Q lived by a grab-bag set of rules for life, some legal, some not, but one she always favored was never to take advantage of a man or woman while they were down. She wouldn’t do so now.

  “Mrs. Biggs,” she began. “I’m honored that you’d consider staying with me.”

  The woman, maybe ten years older than her, offered a hand that seemed only bone and skin. “Mr. Wright tells me you’re in need of a cook for the breakfast part of this bed-and-breakfast.”

  “I am,” Martha Q lied. “When the crowd hits this place I know I couldn’t do it all. I have two girls who come in to clean once a week, but there’s still a hundred things to do. If you’ll do the breakfast cooking every morning, I’ll provide you the bed part and we’ll call it even.”

  Mrs. Biggs nodded once. “Sounds more than fair.”

  “Good. I’ll get you settled in, then show you the kitchen. You can start tomorrow practicing on recipes until the crowd comes.” Martha walked her through to the room nearest the kitchen. “I’m looking for something special folks will remember having for breakfast. Something that will bring them back to Winter’s Inn.”

  Mrs. Biggs set her suitcase down on a stand in a cozy room with a small seating area tucked away inside a big bay window.

  The fat cat looked up at the two ladies as if they were trying to sublet his room.

  “Hope you don’t mind a cat. I call him Mr. Dolittle, but I should have named him Mr. Do-nothing. He thinks he owns the place.”

  Mrs. Biggs’s smile didn’t reach her sad eyes. “We’ll get along fine as long as he stays off the kitchen counters.”

  Martha Q laughed. “He wouldn’t make the effort to jump that high. Mr. Dolittle doesn’t even chase mice, much less that varmint out back that keeps getting into my trash. I don’t know what it is, but it’s big and I’m about to declare war.”

  When Mrs. Biggs told her the dog pound had cages for trapping animals, Martha Q took it on as a mission. While two girls cleaned the house, a yard man kept the lawn clear of leaves, and Mrs. Biggs took over the kitchen, Martha Q tried to stay out of trouble.

  Martha Q had believed all her life that trouble found large-busted women easier than it did the A and B cups of the world. She’d been a B cup by the eighth grade. By the tenth grade she’d discovered boys and learned quickly what they liked.

  Now with nothing to do at home, she feared trouble couldn’t be far away. If she’d been a few years older, she might have tried the senior citizens’ center. She had a feeling she could be engaged by dark in a place like that. If she were ten years younger, she’d head straight for Buffalo’s Bar. Afternoon drinkers were always talky, often lonely, and either rich or unemployed. But the last time she’d wandered into a bar, some kid wanted to buy her a drink because she reminded him of his mother. Martha Q slapped him and walked out, deciding her drinking days were over.

  Martha Q drove out to the pound and picked up the biggest cage they had, then drove the town square looking for trouble.

  All she found was a sign in the used bookstore saying, SPECIAL ON PALM READINGS TODAY . . . TWO HANDS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE.

  Martha Q drove past and circled back home. She asked the yard man to unload the cage. He was one of those disagreeable men who always looked like he was about to break into a swearing contest with God.

  As always, when she told him what to do, he complained and said it wasn’t part of his job. Then she’d say maybe he didn’t want to get paid and he’d give her one of his Drop dead, lady looks and do the job.

  Martha Q knew a great many people who disliked her, a few who hated her, but Lloyd Franklin, the yard man, was the only one who looked like he might be willing to murder her for a tip.

  She’d fire him, but then she’d have to go to the trouble of finding another, who would hate her in no time and she’d be right back where she was now. So, she watched Lloyd carry the cage to the backyard, put it next to the tool and garden shed, and walk away without even glancing back.

  Climbing the stairs, she decided to take a nap. Worrying about the yard man killing her had worn her out.

  How much trouble could she get into by staying an extra hour in bed? She giggled, refusing to answer her own question. Husband number four hadn’t liked her habit of napping at all. He complained once too often about supper being late, and she gave up napping and him at the same time.

  The third morning Mrs. Biggs made what Martha Q had been searching for . . . the perfect breakfast. Walnut-apple pancakes layered with a thin caramel middle that recreated heaven with the first bite. Perfection was served next to fresh bananas and strawberries brushed with cinnamon honey.

  Martha Q was so pleased she invited Tyler Wright and her lawyer to breakfast the next morning, and they agreed she’d found heaven on a plate. The next day Tyler invited his friend Hank Matheson and he brought along his love, Sheriff Alexandra McAllen. When Liz found out her brother was having breakfast at the Winter’s Inn, she asked if she could come too, and the table was suddenly full.

  Martha Q had never had so many friends at her meal. She fussed over them all while Mrs. Biggs insisted on staying in the kitchen so she could be cleaned up and ready to go to the cemetery by nine.

  A week later bookings began to come in. State inspectors that Alex had recommended staying at the B&B. A visiting fireman from Oklahoma giving a program for the fire department. Relatives staying over after a funeral for the reading of the will.

  Between guests, Mrs. Biggs continued trying new dishes, and Martha Q soon found even her jogging suits were growing tighter. She decided to walk after she checked the trap every morning, but the street would never do. Too many people would see her without her makeup.

  So Martha Q had the yard man build her steps down into the dried-up creek bed behind her house. She could walk there, out of the wind and alone.

  While she walked, she thought of how good it felt to help people and decided she was getting so good at it, she should teach a class.

  Chapter 13

  THURSDAY

  JANUARY 31, 2008

  WRIGHT FUNERAL HOME

  The sun decided to come out here today. Hope it did wherever you are. I remember two years ago when we used to e-mail over our dinner every night that you said you liked sunny days.

  Since that spring and all the grass fires, folks in town figured out how much I like old maps. I’m not sure how the word got out, but now every time someone finds an old map in their att
ic, they bring it to me. I thank them all, but most are worthless. A few are very interesting. I got one the other day that was hand drawn in the time before there were many settlers here. It was drawn on the back of a receipt for a hundred head of sheep to be delivered to an early ranch. Some of the ranchers would be surprised to learn that sheep were here long before cattle.

  Oh, I almost forgot, Martha Q, the widow who runs Winter’s Inn caught a little border collie in a trap today. She couldn’t stand the thought of turning it in at the animal shelter, so she asked me to find it a home. The dog is half starved, but I think must have been someone’s special pet once upon a time. She’s really quite polite. She’s sleeping on a throw in the corner of my study right now. I’ll find her a home tomorrow.

  Well, my Kate, I’ve probably bored you enough for tonight. I wish I could write exciting letters, but truth is I’m just a regular man who spends most of his time working.

  Tomorrow it’ll be February. The time when we have our worst weather some years. I planted a magnolia out at the cemetery just because you said you loved them. It’s sheltered from the wind and wrapped for winter, but I don’t know if it’ll be alive come spring. Hope so. As it grows I’ll think of you.

  Until tomorrow,

  Ty

  TYLER CLICKED SEND AND WONDERED IF HE SHOULD TRY to find Major Katherine Cummings. He knew she worked for the government and she traveled all over. She’d even come to Harmony during the grass fires.

  If he asked Alex, she could probably find Kate. He could hire a private eye or check into one of those websites that claims to be able to find anyone.

  But he wanted her to contact him. She’d been the one to walk away. She was the one who never showed up where they’d agreed to meet if either stopped e-mailing. He remembered what she’d written one night, because they hadn’t exchanged names or locations. She’d said that if anything happened and they lost contact, both of them should go where they’d met one stormy night. Quartz Mountain Lodge. The first Monday of the month. She’d even added, Order me a glass of wine because I’ll be there.

  Monday he’d make the drive to southwest Oklahoma one more time and wait again.

  He couldn’t search her down. He wanted her to come back . . . to him.

  Chapter 14

  FRIDAY

  FEBRUARY 1, 2008

  HARMONY TOWN SQUARE

  GABE STOOD BETWEEN THE STORM DRAIN AND THE WINDOW of the county sheriff’s offices. The moonless night made him invisible in the shadows of the building. He listened, picking up information as always. Only tonight, for the first time he wasn’t collecting information for a story he might write . . . this time it was personal.

  Three homes and one apartment had been broken into this week. All four were occupied by Smiths. What he’d dreaded for five years seemed to be happening. Someone was looking for him, and they weren’t wasting time being discreet about the hunt. They were breaking in fast, tracking mud through the place, and leaving without taking anything.

  He took little comfort that whoever was searching didn’t know his real name. If his office somehow was on their list, they’d find nothing to connect G. L. Smith to Gabe Leary and the farm. Gabe had been very careful never to mix his pen name with his real life. He didn’t even bring envelopes home with the Smith address on them, and he paid for the office in cash.

  Reason made him take a deep breath. Maybe he was wrong. Even if someone was searching for him under his pen name, the odds were they knew of no connection between him and the sergeant named Gabriel Wiseman who walked away from an army hospital one night five years ago and disappeared. They couldn’t have tracked him. No one in the army knew his real name was Leary, or that he’d called his dad to come pick him up that night. Once he got home, he’d picked Smith to use on all business deals simply because it was so common. He’d had three names in his life . . . three lives . . . and he’d kept them all separate.

  Five years ago flashed in his thoughts. He’d been near death when he’d heard two men talking beside his bed.

  One said, “Any chance Wiseman will recover?”

  “He might.” The other’s voice had the hint of a New York accent. “A nurse at the desk said if he makes it through the next few days, he’ll have a chance. She also said the guy has no family. Lucky for us, he came from a long line of generals who go all the way back to dying in the Revolutionary War and he’s the last of the clan. They said the only name he listed to be notified of his death was Uncle Sam.”

  “Good, that’ll make it easier. Less questions. No visitors. No one asking for an autopsy. But I say we wait a couple of days. No sense silencing him if nature will do our job for us.”

  “I guess you’re right,” the New Yorker said. “We come back in three days, late at night. You distract the nurse with questions and I’ll slip in and make sure Sergeant Wiseman takes his last breath. There’s only one way to make sure he tells no one about what he saw a moment before that bomb went off.”

  “What if he didn’t see anything?”

  “We can’t take that chance. Plain and simple. The last Wiseman has to die, one way or the other.”

  Gabe’s mind had been so fuzzy from the drugs he could barely think. It took him two days to focus enough to use the phone by his bed. He’d asked the nurse the date so often she’d thought he was out of his head, but every time his mind had cleared, he’d been counting down the hours and planning.

  He remembered being surprised when his dad took the collect call. Then even more surprised when his father agreed to drive for hours down to San Antonio to pick him up.

  The old man never asked a single question when he followed Gabe’s instructions into the back of the hospital; he just listened to Gabe’s directions, wheeled his son to the car, and drove home.

  Gabe was so tired by the time they got to the farm he barely noticed the ramp Jeremiah Truman had built on the porch or the braces he’d hammered to the bed so he could pull himself up. All Gabe remembered was swearing beneath his breath that he was home, then closing his eyes and realizing he was safe.

  In the following weeks, what tortured Gabe more than the recovery without painkillers to take the edge off was the fact that two men planned to kill him and he didn’t know why. He’d seen nothing before the bomb went off.

  That night, leaving the hospital, he abandoned the name Gabe Wiseman and stepped back into the life he’d left ten years before. In Harmony he was Gabe Leary, but when he recovered enough to work as a graphic novelist, he took on the name G. L. Smith. He never had the feeling that he was somehow more than one person. Mostly, he felt he was no one inside, and the names were of little more importance than the clothes he wore. Leary had been a frightened kid, Wiseman a soldier, and Smith a writer. None reflected him.

  Logic told him there was no way the two angels of death could find him as Smith or Leary. The only record of Smith was a lease on an office where he picked up his mail, and he used the drop-off office only for mail related to his work.

  He moved from shadow to shadow, working his way to the far side of the town square. The bookstore lights were still on. A hand-lettered sign read: SPECIAL FRIDAY NIGHT COFFEE AND READINGS. The dry cleaners shop was dark and closed up tight.

  Circling, he noticed Elizabeth’s car and took the back stairs.

  Her office light shone beneath her door. He tapped.

  It seemed to take her a while, but she finally opened the door.

  He stepped inside. “Don’t open your office door after hours. It’s not safe.”

  “Okay,” she replied evenly, though he swore he saw anger spark in her eyes. “Step out and knock and I’ll take your advice.”

  He couldn’t hide the smile. “All right. I’ll amend that comment. Don’t open the door to anyone but me.”

  “But how will I know it’s you?”

  He looked at the door. “I’ll put a peephole in tomorrow, and a bolt if you like.”

  She relaxed. “I’d like that very much. I have this worry th
at Mr. Kaufman will just unlock the door and come in one night. If he caught me sleeping here, he’d probably charge me double.”

  Gabe looked in at the papers on her desk. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you working. I just wanted to tell you to watch out. I’m worried that my office might be broken into.”

  “I thought of that too when Alex told me about the Smith break-ins around town. The sheriff’s department can’t see any logic to it. The thieves don’t even take anything of value. They seem to be looking for something, but whatever it is, they’re not finding it.”

  Gabe followed her into her office and took the chair across the desk from her. “You’ve heard the details.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Everyone’s heard. This is Harmony, the only town that will never need a local radio station.” She stared at him. “But I wouldn’t worry, Mr. Smith. No one will have to knock your door down. It’s unlocked and there is nothing to steal except a box.”

  She was speaking calmly, too calmly. Something was wrong.

  “What else have you heard?”

  “Nothing,” she answered. “It’s what I know, Mr. Smith.”

  “Stop calling me Mr. Smith.”

  “Why, because that is not your name?” She smiled, but he wasn’t sure he liked her smile any better than he did the know-it-all attitude.

  Standing, she circled the desk. “I’ve done some searching. You rented this place about four years ago. Pay in cash a year in advance. There is no G. L. Smith living in this county and never has been. No car registration. No library card. No voter signed in on the county books.”

  As she moved toward him, he saw the lawyer in her, but he had no intention of playing the witness on the stand. He simply watched her.

  She paced half the room, pointed at him, then paced the other half. “You’re lying, Mr. Smith, admit it.”