by Lynn Bulock
For someone who had solved her own problems for close to forty years I sure felt like I’d turned into a needy, hopeless sort in the past two weeks. But then, the kind of problems I’d solved before were child’s play compared to discovering that my husband had a pregnant fiancée, or finding out that somebody was apparently trying to kill me but got him instead, and then succeeded in killing him after all. And that didn’t even touch the money issues, or dear, missing Edna.
“Well, I appreciate you being able to breathe through everything I’ve told you today. If you want to withdraw the offer that Linnette had made for someone from here to officiate at the funeral at Dodd and Sons, I’d certainly understand.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t dream of it. I can certainly preach at a funeral without approving of everything the deceased did in his life. Funerals are really more for the living relatives and friends who attend them. I can’t do anything for Dennis at this point. What I can do is give comfort to those who attend his funeral while making them aware of the love God extends to all of us in His son. Sometimes I feel that occasions like this are the ones that allow me to really flex my faith muscles.”
I hadn’t thought of things in anywhere near that context before, and told him so. He smiled again. “Now, do we have a timetable for all of the final arrangements yet?”
“Not quite. Once I get a call from Detective Fernandez I’ll know when Dennis’s body will be released. It will go directly to Dodd and Sons, where I’ve already spoken to Scott. After that there will be at least two or three days of preparation, so I’m figuring that nothing will happen before Friday at the earliest.”
I sat looking at the small notepad on which I’d scribbled a to-do list of things to discuss. “I still have to talk to Dennis’s former wife, Carol. I want to at least offer her and their daughter a chance to be involved in as much of this as possible. I imagine she’ll turn down the offer but his daughter, Becca, might accept.” After my limited contact with the angry young woman, it was hard to say.
Pastor George and I agreed to stay in touch, and he walked me out into the main office to introduce me to the church secretary, whose name was Helen, and explain to her what was happening. Helen, a woman with a tight silver perm, didn’t look a lot younger than Edna. She wasn’t any more easily rattled than her boss, though, because she took down everything he told her with brisk efficiency and never batted an eye. If multiple-family funerals were a new concept for her, she didn’t show it. We talked about bulletins for the service for Dennis, and came to the conclusion there wasn’t much Helen could do this far ahead of time. I left there feeling as if I’d gotten something accomplished, even though it wasn’t a huge something. The way my days had been going lately, any sense of accomplishment was a good thing.
I needed to accomplish something even more intense pretty soon, but I needed fuel before doing it. So I stopped by the quiet, empty house and made myself a quick lunch. I’d never been one for keeping the radio or TV on all the time, but it was getting to be a habit while I was here alone. Otherwise the silence was almost creepy.
For the first time, as I ate, I really thought about the future. The immediate future was pretty unpredictable. I couldn’t tell what I’d be doing in the next week or so, other than some time we’d have services for Dennis. Maybe Edna would show up, and maybe she wouldn’t. I’d have to talk to a lawyer soon to figure out what kind of legal proceedings I needed to start to determine if there was any way to get my money back from Dennis’s virtually nonexistent estate. I needed to find at least a part-time job—whether it was at the coffee shop at school or somewhere else—and go back to my studies.
On top of all that, I really had to start thinking about moving to another place. If Edna didn’t come home soon I didn’t have much real right to stay here now that Dennis was gone. And if she did come back in the next few days the situation would feel even more awkward. Dennis, even uncommunicative in a hospital bed, had been the only tie between the two of us. Now that he was gone, there wasn’t much of anything to sustain a relationship. This was no Ruth and Naomi situation. I suspected we’d both be more than ready to move on from each other.
I needed more time to think than the few minutes it took to finish a sandwich and a few potato chips. Even peeling and sectioning an orange and eating it slowly afterward, I ran out of food long before I ran out of questions. So I combed my hair and made sure I had lipstick on again and checked my maps. It was time for a little drive.
I found Carol Peete’s house in Woodland Hills without much problem. It was a middle-class community in the San Fernando Valley full of modest two-story and ranch homes with small but neatly manicured lawns and a lot of strip malls along the main streets. Other than the palm trees and bougainvillea in the front yards, you could have been in any suburban area I’d ever seen. There were lots of SUVs and pickup trucks, and now that it was midafternoon I noticed that a couple of ten-or twelve-year-old boys in the neighborhood were dragging out a plastic ramp and working on their skateboard tricks.
At first I’d planned to call and give Carol a lot of warning that I’d be visiting her, but then decided it would just give her more time to reject my visit. So I’d driven almost to her neighborhood, pulled into a shopping center and looked up the phone number, calling from my cell phone. She’d sounded surprised and not terribly encouraging but said I could come by if I didn’t plan on staying long, or mind dealing with her grandson. Since I was anxious to see the baby, anyway, I agreed. Ten minutes later I was in front of her tan stucco house, watching the neighbor kids set up their ramp.
When Carol Peete opened the door I had one of those moments where I had a great realization. Dennis had spent his life working his way through a succession of the same type of woman. I wondered if there were any others out there we didn’t know about, falling between her age and mine, and then Heather and me on the other end. Otherwise if you could line us up it would have looked like a family reunion of some sort. We might not have looked as similar as sisters, but we could definitely all three have been cousins.
Carol had light brown hair, a little bit darker than mine, just as mine was darker than Heather’s. The first Mrs. Peete had helped hers along a little with some highlights or streaks, which probably covered up a little gray. Her bone structure was similar to mine, and what I expected Heather’s would be if she weren’t eight months pregnant by now. We could all stand to lose maybe ten pounds under normal circumstances, and were what a polite woman would call “well endowed” in the chest region. Right now Carol wore jeans and a sweater, and had answered the door in bare feet, with a laughing blond baby on her hip as an accessory.
“Hi, I’m Gracie Lee.”
“I figured as much. You know I’m Carol. Come on in. Like I said, I can’t promise you much time. If this guy starts one of his screaming fits, we won’t be able to hear each other, anyway. Fortunately he’s good-natured most of the time. Takes after his father, thankfully.” She had a brief look that said she couldn’t believe she’d said that, but I let it pass.
I followed her through the front hall, which separated a small formal living room and dining room. We went back to the kitchen where windows opened into a sunny expanse of pool deck and well-planted but small backyard typical of Southern California homes.
“This is Ollie?” I waved at him, figuring he was probably at that age where he wouldn’t have anything to do with a stranger, even one that looked slightly like his grandmother. He was smiling right now and gumming on something that looked like it had started life as part of a stale bagel. After what she’d said about his screaming fits, I didn’t want to make him unhappy.
“It is. Does this mean that you and Becca have actually talked long enough for you to know his name?” Carol had an inquisitive look in her tired gray eyes. She motioned me to a seat at her kitchen table, which I took gratefully.
“We’ve talked, although not since the day Dennis died. And mostly she talked about Ollie, how old he was, that he was
teething a lot. I wish Dennis could have gotten to know him. He looks like a great kid.” He did—a nice, solid healthy baby with little squiffs of blond hair standing up in fine cowlicks.
“Yeah, well, from what I’ve heard he was too busy starting another generation to be bothered with grand-kids even before meeting Ollie became a nonissue.” Carol poured herself a cup of coffee and held the pot up in question, to which I asked for a cup. She got out another ironstone mug and poured. It was good and strong and black when I retrieved it from the counter. I didn’t want her carrying it with Ollie on one hip, and he didn’t want to be put down.
“You may be right there. I just found out about Heather a little while ago myself.”
“Did it surprise you?” Whatever Carol was, shy wasn’t part of the equation. I guess she couldn’t have been and dealt with Dennis for this many years.
“It did. I had suspected something was up, but I figured whatever had happened was business related, not another woman. I guess I just hadn’t considered that.”
“Because he was attentive and flattering when he was around, and you felt like you were the only woman in the world when he looked into your eyes.” She was dancing Ollie in her lap now, and there was an odd difference between her flat, practiced tone of voice and the shining love for this beautiful child that came through in her gaze.
“You’re right. You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you?”
“Too many times. I’m over Dennis and I have been for a number of years. I’m sorry he’s dead, I guess. If nothing else, it means that Becca will never get the last of her college tuition money back. She’s still paying off the loans, and will be for years. Once her father ‘invested’ the money her grandmother had put aside for her, there wasn’t anything anywhere for her to go to school on. No surprise there, considering it was Dennis.” She looked over the bouncing baby. “I won’t even ask you how much he took you for.”
It shook me for a moment that she hadn’t questioned for a moment if Dennis had gotten money from me. I wish I’d talked to her quite a while ago. Maybe a lot of things would have turned out differently. Or maybe not. She was right about another thing—Dennis was always so persuasively charming that no one else bad-mouthing him would have made a difference.
“Thanks. I appreciate the candor. Let’s just say I’m missing some money and leave it at that. I actually came by to discuss funeral service plans. I want to involve you, and Becca, to whatever extent you want to be involved. I expect to know before noon tomorrow when the services will be. I already know where—at Dodd and Sons in Rancho Conejo.”
Carol leaned forward, still holding the baby. “Does this mean you’ve talked to Edna?” She looked like she wanted to take the question back the moment she asked it.
“No, why? Do you know where she is?”
There was a pause before she answered while she paid attention to Ollie, brushing nonexistent crumbs off the front of his blue sleeper.
“Of course not. But once a few years back she’d mentioned having a prepaid plan there, and that Dennis had talked her into cosigning on something that paid for him, too. Not that he ever expected to use it, of course. But if there was a way for somebody else to pay for something…”
That sounded like the Dennis I was coming to know after his death. I’d probably known most of these things before, but hadn’t been in a place to accept them. Carol Peete had had much more time alone with her thoughts of Dennis than I had. “You’re sure she hasn’t contacted you or Becca? I’m getting pretty worried about her. She hasn’t ever mentioned anyplace else she’d go—no other family or anything. And she’s been gone more than a week.”
“Don’t look at me. We have been barely on speaking terms for years. If we’ve met at all, you can guarantee that the reason for getting together has been this little man here. She loves him, of course. And Becca would be her favorite grandchild even if she wasn’t her only grandchild, just for producing a beautiful male child.”
“That’s interesting. She only had nice things to say about you the whole time I lived with her.”
Carol shrugged, her eyes looking even more tired. “Of course. I wasn’t there.” This whole afternoon was becoming a learning experience for me in ways I hadn’t expected. In the past few months when I’d been listening to Edna, I’d felt like nothing I was ever going to do would measure up to Carol. It seemed that Edna had played that same trick on all of us. Maybe that was why she’d warmed up to Heather so much the day Dennis died. Perhaps she saw another chance for bonding with a new listener, one that might be another shot at a male grandchild.
Ollie was beginning to rub his eyes, which made him even fussier when gummy bits of the bagel he’d been munching embedded themselves into his pudgy cheeks and pale eyebrows. When he finally threw away the chunk of bagel and gave a shout of frustration, I figured the interview was close to over.
“He’s not going to last much longer,” Carol said with a practiced look. She stood up and put him in my lap while he was still facing her, so the baby wouldn’t be immediately aware of who had him. “I know he’s going to crab, but would you hold on to him a minute? I need to get a fresh diaper and a couple other things before I settle him down.”
“Sure.” I’d never argue with holding a baby, even one who was a bit fussy. He arched his back so that I had to struggle to hold on to him while he fishtailed in my lap. I knew that turning him around toward me would probably result in howls, but he’d be easier to handle facing me. The moment I turned him, his lip quivered and he started whimpering. “I know. But Grandma will be back in just a minute. It will be okay, Ollie.” He didn’t go into a full-fledged fit, for which I was thankful. And aside from the crying, it was wonderful to hold him. He was warm and cuddly, and his hair still smelled a little like baby shampoo. Of course it smelled a little like wet bagel, too, but that was to be expected in a busy guy his age.
Had it really only been seventeen years since Ben was this small? It felt more like a hundred, I thought. Carol’s phone rang and I wondered what to do. Before I could wonder too long she was back in the kitchen, setting down a diaper and some other supplies to pick up the cordless unit in the corner. “Hello. Yes?” There was a long silence from her end and her shoulders under the loose-woven white sweater looked taut. “Look, this isn’t a good time. Ollie’s ready to go down for his nap and I’ve got company.” She didn’t say any more than that, but it felt like she was trying to telegraph something to the person on the other end with her words. For a moment I actually wondered if it could be Edna. There was just something about the way Carol glanced at me quickly, and then looked away that had a touch of guilt to it.
Whoever it was, Carol ended the conversation with very little else to say, and came back to the table, taking the fussy Ollie from me. In a few short moments he was changed, washed up and in a clean one-piece outfit and back in her arms taking a bottle. He twirled the fingers of his left hand through his hair while the right hand grasped the bottle in that sleepy, preoccupied set of gestures that said he would be dropping off soon.
“Look, I don’t want to seem like I’m kicking you out, but he’ll settle down a lot faster without anybody else here.” Since the phone call Carol seemed jumpy. It only deepened my suspicions that Edna had been on the other end of the line.
I could be wrong, I knew. She could just be a tired middle-aged grandmother taking care of an active kid, looking forward to a little time for herself once he went down for that nap. “Can I call you later once I know more about the services?”
“Sure. If I come, it will be for Becca. Like I said before, I’ve been over Dennis for years. I hope you get over him soon. It’s a healthier life, being over Dennis Peete.” Tears formed quickly in her eyes and then vanished just as quickly, unshed. “Do you mind letting yourself out?” She nodded down toward Ollie, who’d drifted off still sucking the bottle.
I thanked her for her time and the coffee, and picked up my purse to leave. Retracing my path, I went o
ut through the front room and into the small entrance hall. There was another cordless phone handset on the wash-stand there, and seeing it made me overwhelmingly tempted to do something shady. I could hear Carol in the kitchen humming to the baby, and silently I picked up the cordless phone and pushed a button. As I’d hoped, the last caller showed up on the display with a name and time. It logged on as five minutes ago, and the caller ID said “Miller, Brandon J.”
I put the phone down as quietly as possible and went back out to my car, thinking about everything Carol had said, and what I’d just found out. I had plenty to think about again, and none of the answers I’d hoped to get by talking to Carol. And now I was even surer that she knew exactly where Edna was.
Why else would someone be calling from Becca’s when both of Ollie’s parents were supposed to be at work and Carol was watching the baby? And how could I explain my suspicions to anybody else without looking awful? The truth was that I was just going to have to ’fess up and look awful, because it was the only way to get around what I more than just suspected now.
If I had known where that condo or apartment was already, I probably would have tried to confront Edna myself. Not the brightest idea in the world, but the best one I had right now. As it was, I didn’t have any choice but to go back to Detective Fernandez and tell him. He had Becca’s address and was probably the only person who wanted to find Edna more than I did. I’d just have to put up with the fireworks that were bound to occur when I told him the truth about how I’d found the information.
10
Fireworks there were, the moment that Detective Fernandez heard what I had to say. He wasn’t exactly appreciative of the fact that I’d looked at somebody else’s caller ID, and he didn’t like any of my ideas on how he should check things out at this point, either.
I’d chickened out on driving straight to the sheriff’s substation from Carol’s house, and gone back to Edna’s to make a phone call instead. Our first couple of sentences of conversation were pleasant, because the detective was doing all the talking.