At the door, he studied me for a long minute before speaking. “I was the last one to see her.”
“What?”
“Gabe didn’t tell you?”
I shook my head, not wanting to go into detail about how little Gabe told me about his work.
“I left her at the library at six o’clock. She knew the lockdown procedure and she had some stuff she said she wanted to work on in the computer lab. It was really against the rules, but Jillian’s pretty relaxed about that kind of stuff. We’d done it lots of times. We were supposed to have breakfast together the next morning.” His voice cracked again. “If I’d only stayed. If I’d—“
“Nick, don’t beat yourself up. There’s no way you could have known.” The path he was walking down was one way too familiar to me. That overwhelming, but entirely false feeling that somehow, if we’d just done things differently, we could have changed fate and prevented the tragedy. “I’m so sorry,” I said again.
He just nodded and closed the door behind me without answering.
On the drive to the folk-art museum I castigated myself for even bringing up the investigation. Some friend I was. But Grace was my friend, too, and I didn’t want her and Roy to be hurt by this either. We’d become pretty close in the few months we’d exercised, trained, and doctored her horses together. Going to the stables three or four times a week eased somewhat my homesickness for daily ranch life. Our small rented house didn’t allow pets, so playing with Grace’s dogs and helping with her animals had become a welcomed respite to this new life in town that deep down I couldn’t believe was permanent.
I pulled into the museum parking lot and parked in my habitual spot under a huge oak tree whose dark gray trunk was crisscrossed with tree scars professing various undying loves and the nineties equivalent of “Kilroy was here.” The parking lot was jammed with vehicles, and there was a corresponding amount of frantic activity in the neighboring field. The barbed-wire fencing normally separating the pasture from our parking lot had been temporarily removed, so I walked straight into the field, waving at different local merchants as they decorated their booths for the festival. In the center of the field D-Daddy was supervising a group of boisterous college boys unloading hay bales from a new Ford pickup.
We were providing three storytelling areas—the main one in the center under a rented canopy, which would have a plain wood backdrop and hay bales for seating, and two smaller areas, both under large, leafy oak trees. They would also have hay bales for seating, but the storytellers themselves would have to provide any backdrop—imaginative or otherwise. All of them were far enough from each other so one storyteller’s voice wouldn’t overshadow another. The workshops would be held at staggered times in the main room of the co-op studios.
“To the left,” D-Daddy yelled. “Left!” Three young men pushed the backdrop up. One kid wearing a peach-colored bowling shirt with WORLEY’S ELECTRICAL SUPPLY embroidered on back ran around and caught the teetering wall. They steadied it with long two-by-fours while trying to figure out how to add another brace to make it steady. “C’est ça,” D-Daddy said. “That’s it.”
“Everything’s looking great,” I said, walking up to him.
He pulled out a dark blue bandanna and wiped his perspiring face. “Told them boys in the wood shop two braces weren’t near enough. Guess they’ll listen next time. Everything’s close to done, you bet.”
“Gee, D-Daddy, what do you need me for?”
“To give light to the heavens, ange,” he said, giving me a toothy smile and gesturing skyward. His thick white pompadour glistened in the sunlight.
One of the kids struggling with the backdrop snorted loudly. D-Daddy snapped his long fingers and told him to get cracking or there’ d be no lunch for him come noon.
Inside the museum I walked through the exhibit, thankful again for D-Daddy’s unexpected presence in my life. The story quilts were all hung evenly and properly with the wooden clip hangers the woodworkers had recently made. On the other side of one of the freestanding walls in the main exhibit hall, I heard a voice singing softly “Jolie blonde, you steal my heart away” in that sweet lilting tempo common to Cajun music. I peeked around and found Evangeline standing on a footstool making a few finishing stitches on her already-hung story quilt. Though I hadn’t made a sound on the museum’s speckled commercial carpet, she must have sensed my presence. She spun around quick as a sparrow, her face icy with panic, small embroidery scissors held point outward.
I held up my hands. “I surrender.”
She laughed uneasily. “Benni, you startled me.” She hopped down off the folding stool, her wide cheekbones flushed with tiny rosebuds.
“Sorry,” I said. “What are you doing?”
She glanced over her shoulder, then gave me a rueful smile. “You know quilters. We just can’t ever really finish anything.” She laughed. “Or maybe I should say fabric artists.”
I laughed at her emphasis. There’ d been a constant though good-natured rivalry between the traditional quilters, who preferred utilizing historic patterns and reworking them in creative ways, and the avant-garde quilters, who believed in free-form expression, tended to avoid traditional piecing, and insisted on being called fabric artists rather than quilters. This exhibit celebrated both groups, as storytelling quilts used both techniques. But even looking at the displayed quilts, you could guess each quilter’s preference. Evangeline, being a natural peacemaker, moved effortlessly between the two groups, her gentle sense of humor keeping the conflict light and playful.
“It’s marvelous,” I said, scanning her story quilt—Cajun Days and Nights. I’d just typed up her explanation about the creation of the quilt yesterday and, as I had with each quilt, studied it closely after transcribing her words from my tape recorder. She’d chosen to present her story in an easy, entertaining way that would draw the spectator into the quilt. It unfolded in rows like a comic strip—every other square was a traditional pieced pattern—Little Schoolhouse, Ocean Waves, Streak of Lightning, Crosses and Losses—contrasting with the intricate appliquéd story squares showing some aspect of Cajun life—a swing in a drooping cypress tree, an old bearded man in a small pi-rogue fishing in a swamp, a woman rocking her baby while her husband lies sleeping under a quilt, a flock of orange-legged cranes hiding among some marsh reeds, a ramshackle building with a sign advertising SMALL ACCORDIONS, BOUDIN, HOT LINKS, USED TIRES, RUBBER BOOTS—CHEEP. There were sixteen squares in all. The colors were as bright and eye-catching as a circus poster.
“I just had to add some beading to this woman’s dress,” she said. “I really need to learn to let go, I guess. I’ve got four commissioned quilts I simply have to get finished.”
“That’s what you get for being so talented,” I said.
She stepped down off the ladder. “I really want to finish them on time so people will keep commissioning me. The sooner I quit working at Eudora’s, the happier D-Daddy will be.” She worked part-time at Ash’s coffeehouse/restaurant, and her father wasn’t real pleased with it. He and Ash had tangled more than a few times since we’d started planning this festival. I’d never figured out just what the problem between them was. I’d heard rumors that when Evangeline first came to town, she and Ash had a short fling, but I didn’t put much stock in it. Rumors of Ash’s conquests had to far outweigh the true number of women he’d actually slept with. And Evangeline, gentle spirit notwithstanding, didn’t impress me as being anyone’s fool. She and D-Daddy were very close, though, and I assumed she just wanted to quit at Eudora’s to make him happy. He told me once they didn’t need her money, his Social Security and savings could support them, but I was sure Evangeline wasn’t the type of woman to live off anyone—even her father.
“So, what’s up with my lover?” she asked, her dark eyes twinkling with humor. It had become a running joke between us about her name and Gabe’s. I’d completely forgotten, until she mentioned it one day, about those ill-fated Acadian lovers of Longfellow’s narrative poe
m, Gabriel and Evangeline.
“He’s probably in another meeting chomping at the bit,” I said. “The thing he hates most about being chief is that everyone else gets to do the fieldwork and he has to sit and listen to politicians strategize and complain.”
“Poor Gabe,” she said.
“And it’s only going to get worse, what with Nora’s death.” I nodded toward the co-op studios. “How’s everyone doing?” I’d come to rely on Evangeline to keep me informed on the general emotional tenor of the artists.
“Everyone’s buzzing, of course. It’s such a sad thing. Nora was only a few weeks older than me.” Her face became as pale as unbleached muslin. She touched a hand to her stomach. “It makes me sick to even think about it.”
I nodded and changed the subject. “How’s your story for the festival coming along?” Evangeline’s specialty was, naturally, Cajun folktales, and a few days ago she’d given me a performance of the Gabriel and Evangeline story she’d modified. She’d turned it into a comedy—making Gabriel and Evangeline fat and sassy Hampshire pigs (with her humble apologies to Gabe and his cohorts) separated on the way to the slaughterhouse. Unlike Longfellow’s lovers, their tale ended happily, with them wallowing in a cool Louisiana mud puddle, grunting as the sun set behind a weathered gum tree. By the end of the story, she’d had me giggling like a little kid.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” she said. “I’m nervous, of course, but once I can look into people’s faces, I’m fine.” She rubbed her palms down the sides of her faded gingham shirt. “How’s things in the North Forty?”
“With D-Daddy in charge? You have to ask?”
She laughed. “You’re right. What do you have planned today?”
I gestured around the room. “Everything’s done here, thanks to your dad, so I guess I’ll just go to my office, have a cup of coffee, and contemplate the cosmos.” And Gabe and Sam, I thought, then took a deep breath. And Rita. I’d almost forgotten about her.
“Why the sigh?” Evangeline asked, her eyebrows curving inward in concern.
I waved my hand. “Nothing, just some unexpected company. I’ll fill you in later. Want a cup of coffee?”
“No, thanks. I have to get changed and get to work.”
“Don’t forget the last board meeting Wednesday night at Angelo’s,” I said. “The pizza’s on me.”
“Seven o’clock, right? I never miss a free meal.”
After a quick raid on the never-empty coffeepot in the co-op’s small kitchen, I walked past the wood shop into my windowless office. The now familiar scent of wood shavings, hot glue, and wet leather calmed my agitated soul almost as much as the comforting ranch smells of my childhood. I set my mug down on my desk and surveyed my very full “in” box. I had things to do, there was no doubt about it, but I was nervous and antsy, as I always was before a big museum function, and I knew I’d probably be better off tackling my paperwork next week when the festival was over.
I propped my feet up on my desk and stared at the double-framed pictures of my husband. One showed him sober-faced and perfectly groomed in a dark suit posing for his official chief-of-police portrait. The other was a snapshot I took one afternoon last summer when he was washing his dad’s old Chevy truck, right after it arrived from Kansas. He wore a pair of shredded Levi’s cutoffs, and his thick black hair was at the shaggy stage just before he gets a haircut. Soapsuds dotted his dark chest hair, and his face beamed with pure adolescent pride and joy. It was my favorite picture of him.
A sharp tap on my door startled me out of my daydreaming.
“You busy?” Peter Grant asked. Without waiting for an answer, he sat down in one of my metal office chairs. He wore a dark green T-shirt today stating GO CLIMB A ROCK and he was scowling.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, setting my coffee cup down.
“What isn’t?”
“Okay,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. This sounded serious. “I guess we’re playing twenty questions. Is it something to do with the festival?”
“It’s Roy.”
“What about him?”
“One of the stories he’s going to tell on Saturday trashes environmentalists. Stop him.”
I contemplated him for a moment. We were treading on delicate ground here. I didn’t know what the content of Roy’s story was, though I’d certainly find out, but one storyteller demanding another storyteller change his story was asking a lot.
“How exactly does he do that?”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I haven’t actually heard the story, but someone said he trashes them.”
“Who?”
He shook his head. “I don’t want to get anyone else involved.”
“Okay, I’ll look into it. If there’s anything that I think is demeaning to anyone, I’ll certainly discuss it with him, but there’s no law—”
“Not good enough. I demand he be stopped. I think the ranchers have paid him to make me look foolish and push their own agenda.”
“I’m sure that’s not true, Peter. As for what’s in his story, we’ve got a small thing called the First Amendment going here. Unless there’s something I find unsuitable for a family crowd in his story, I can’t really tell him what to say any more than I could ask you to change your stories.”
His tanned face drew into a sneer. “Why should I have expected anything different from you?”
I bit back my response, refusing to rise to his baiting. “Look, this festival is not supposed to be about pushing political agendas. The whole point of storytelling is to bring people together, consider someone else’s point of view. Why can’t you and Roy work this out between yourselves?”
“I knew you’d wimp out,” he said with a bitter laugh. “What’s wrong? Afraid I might sway some people in my direction?”
“I believe people have the right to hear both sides and make up their own minds. I just find one thing funny about you, Peter.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re so free and easy about wanting what I own to be publicly administrated, I wonder how you’d feel if the shoe were on the other foot.”
“I’d think about the common good.”
“Oh, really? Let’s see, you own a home, right? And if I remember correctly, it has a pool.”
He looked at me suspiciously. “So?”
“You use that pool, what, two or three times a week? I think when you’re not using it, it should be available for the common good. I think you should open it up to all the people who don’t have the financial means of owning a pool. And if anybody accidentally hurts themselves while playing in your pool, they should have the right to sue you. It is, after all, your responsibility.”
“That’s ridiculous. It’s not the same thing.”
“Why? Because someone owns five hundred acres and you own a quarter acre? Isn’t the common good what we’re talking about here?”
He pointed a finger at me. “I’m warning you, Benni. If Roy does anything that makes me or my friends look bad, he’ll be sorry.”
“Don’t threaten me, Peter. I have the authority to pull you out of the festival and I won’t hesitate to use it if I think there’s going to be trouble.” I smiled sweetly at him. “All for the common good, of course.”
His face flushed a deep red, and he stormed through the door, almost knocking D-Daddy down in the process.
“What his problem?” D-Daddy asked, vertical worry lines folding over his white eyebrows. He looked at my face and said, “That man bother you, chère? You say the word—” He held a fist up in front of him.
I covered his big-knuckled hand with mine. “It’s nothing. Peter and I have been trying to push each other out of the pen since we were calves.”
D-Daddy shook his head dubiously, but didn’t press it.
“How’s it looking out there?” I asked, changing the subject.
“By Friday it’ll be perfect, I guarantee.”
“I’ve never doubted that for one moment.”
&
nbsp; “Evangeline here?”
“She left for work about a half hour ago.”
His good-natured expression turned sour. “She don’t need to work there, no. I’ll take care of her.”
“I’m not getting in the middle of that fight,” I said. “I’m going to go to lunch in a little bit. Want me to bring you back something?”
“No, Evangeline make me lunch today. In the icebox.”
“Well, man the battle stations while I’m gone. I think I’ll drop by the stables for a little while, too. I’ll be back around four.”
I puttered around the office for a few minutes after D-Daddy left, trying to decide what I felt like eating. The argument with Peter had left me restless. I had enough to worry about without the stress of a possible fight between environmentalists and aggies at the festival. I wondered what Gabe was doing. I wondered what Sam was doing. I wondered if they’d run into each other in town and what would happen if they did. I wondered why in the world I was letting it bother me. As I was leaving, the phone rang, and another worry jumped to the front of the list.
“There’s no food in this house,” Rita whined.
“Get a job,” I said, and started to hang up. I quickly amended my statement. “But not in San Celina.”
“I ran into Gabe this morning,” she said, her voice carrying that smug tone I knew too well.
“How?” I asked, seeing as when I walked him to his car this morning, she wasn’t even up yet.
“He forgot his briefcase. We ran into each other when I was coming out of the shower.”
I groaned inwardly and asked, “Oh, geez, were you dressed?”
“For pity’s sake, Benni, of course I was. What kind of trailer trash do you think I am?”
I took the fifth on that one.
6
“I’M STARVING,” she said. “Want to go to lunch? I’ll tell you all about Skeeter—that no-good, double-dealing bull jockey.”
Goose in the Pond Page 9