She narrowed one eye at me. “Get on with you now. Breakfast is at seven sharp. You’re going to need a good one tomorrow. I’m making chocolate-cinnamon pancakes and Louisiana hot sausage.”
My favorite breakfast. Geez, how can you love someone to pieces and still want to throttle her?
Easy, I thought when I walked into the bedroom and saw Gabe sitting in bed waiting for me.
I undressed and crawled next to him.
“What’s the news from the battlefront?” he asked.
“It appears to be a standoff, though I think the Razorback has got the Bruin on the run. Possession is still nine tenths of the law, right? And right now Aunt Garnet has captured Dove’s home. I don’t think that’s quite sunk in yet to Dove. Once it does, I don’t want to be around.”
“I’ll just be glad when our house is back to being our house.”
I snuggled next to him. “So, what now, Chief Ortiz?”
“What do you mean?”
“The note. What should I do?”
“Nothing. I’m going to beef up security for the festival. Just promise me you will absolutely stay away from discussing this with anyone.”
I thought about my talk with Grace tonight. “That’s not as easy as it seems.”
“Benni—” His voice was reproving.
I sat up and shook my fist at him. “Gabe.” I mocked his tone. “I can’t help what people tell me. I repeat, I have not asked any questions. But people do tell me things. They assume I know more than I do because I’m your wife. What am I supposed to do about that?”
He didn’t answer, but pulled off his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose. I leaned over and ran my hand across his bare chest. “Don’t worry, papacito,” I said. “I’m going to be fine. You’re overreacting.”
He pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around me. “I’d never forgive myself if you were ever hurt because of my job.” He rubbed his lips across the top of my head. I felt my hair catch in his mustache.
“I won’t,” I said firmly. “You’ll find who did this. I have complete confidence in you.”
He sighed. “I’m glad somebody does.”
“The city council hassling you again?”
“The city council, the city manager, the mayor, citizen’s groups, the newspapers. So many people are roasting me right now, I feel like one of your dad’s steers on the Fourth of July.”
“Is that why you’re trying to pin it on Roy Hudson?” The minute the words were out, I knew they hadn’t sounded the way I’d intended.
“What?” He loosened his hold. “Who told you that?”
I scooted across the bed from him and cradled my pillow in front of me. “Grace caught me as I was leaving the pizza parlor tonight. She asked me if I thought she should get a lawyer for him. She said you were convinced he’d done it since they’d fought only hours before she was killed.”
His lips tightened under his mustache. “What else did she tell you?”
“That you’d confiscated all his ropes. That it was an anonymous tip that told you about the fight. Is it true?”
He frowned. “What?”
“About the ropes. The tip.”
“Yes, and that’s all you need to know.” I flinched at the sharpness in his voice.
I hugged the pillow tighter. “Gabe, why are you so angry?”
His face softened, and he reached over and pushed the pillow away, pulling me to him. “I’m not mad at you, sweetheart. I’m angry at people getting you involved when you shouldn’t be. Mostly, I’m afraid for you. As much as I’d like to, I can’t be with you every minute. Just try to stay around large groups of people for the time being, okay?”
At that moment we heard the front door open and Sam and Rita’s loud, laughing voices fill the living room. Dove’s voice soon joined the talking. Sam started telling a story about some kooky guy he’d just waited on at Eudora’s, with Rita interrupting every so often with a comment about her short-lived career as a cocktail waitress and Dove’s gruff voice telling them they don’t know crazy people, listen to what Garnet just did—
“Somehow,” I said, “I have a feeling that’s not going to be a problem.”
10
AS I SUSPECTED, the last thing Gabe had to worry about the next day was me being alone. For the first time since all our company had landed like a flock of crows in a cornfield, everyone was present at the same meal. At breakfast Gabe and Sam didn’t speak, but at least they didn’t fight; Dove was in high spirits because Aunt Garnet hadn’t left a message . . . yet. Even Rita seemed a little more cheerful. At least everyone’s day was beginning on a pleasant tone. I walked Gabe out to his car, taking that time to tell him what Jillian had said about Nick and Nora’s argument the night she was killed.
“I’m not surprised,” Gabe said. “Detective Weber said he thought Nick was nervous about something.” He opened the Corvette’s door and stuck his briefcase behind the driver’s seat. “I meant what I said last night. I want you to make certain you stay around groups of people.”
“Should I leave the door open when I take a leak?” I teased.
He looked down at me, his face serious in the pale morning sunlight. “I’m not joking, Benni. I have half a mind to make you stay at the ranch for a week or so.”
“Excuse me, Friday, but you can’t make me do anything. Would you just let it go?”
“I’ll increase patrols by the museum,” he said. “What are your plans for today? What time are you coming home tonight?”
I poked him hard in the chest with my forefinger. “You don’t listen to a word I say, do you?”
He grabbed my finger and shook it. “I listen. I’m just ignoring it since you don’t seem to grasp your precarious position.”
“I understand perfectly, but believe me, today of all days you won’t have to worry about me being alone.” I slipped my arms around his neck and kissed him hard. “I’ll meet you at Farmers’ tonight. Next to the storyteller’s booth at six o’clock. If you’re real nice to me, I’ll buy you dinner.”
“Call me if anything out of the ordinary happens,” he said, his eyes still worried.
My prediction about not being alone was more true than I could have ever imagined. At the museum there must have been a hundred people working on booths and setting up camp. By midafternoon, we’d checked in almost every storyteller who’d reserved a camping spot, and most of the booths were finished. Between helping the campers get settled and giving them their festival packets, telling them the rules of the campground and their storytelling times, I helped out the unexpectedly overburdened docents by giving tours of the storytelling quilt and Pueblo storytelling doll exhibit. At five, just as I was getting ready to leave and drive downtown to grab a parking space before they were all taken, Constance Sinclair herself showed up with a group of friends who’d flown up from L.A. at her invitation. Naturally she wanted the museum curator herself to give a private after-hours tour, so it was past six-thirty before I made it downtown. The parking structure was already full, as were all the downtown parking lots, so I was forced to park the pickup four blocks away on a side street. I hurried down the dark street because I knew Gabe would be worried when I didn’t show up on time. He’d already called me three times today to make sure I was still in one piece.
It took me about ten minutes to walk to Lopez Street, barricaded now at both ends for the three long blocks that made up downtown San Celina. The scents of Farmers’ Market swirled around me as I stepped into the crowded throng of people—smoky tri-tip beef, huge turkey legs, Chinese shish kebabs, and peppery Portuguese linguica sausage barbecuing over thick chunks of white-hot oakwood; the toasty smell of homemade tamales and cooking pinquito beans; the sweet scent of fresh flowers from the commercial fields in Lompoc down south; and the sharp, bitter smell of cigarette smoke hovering over chattering groups of college students. Everything that made San Celina County special was represented at Thursday-night Farmers’ Market—the rainbow displays of bright o
range carrots, Kentucky Wonder beans, winter banana apples, lipstick peppers, sage honey, raw almonds, local wines, and fresh brown ranch eggs (happy chickens on the ground!), and the best caramel apples in the universe; the independent entrepreneurs hawking bead jewelry, balloon animals, hand puppets, velveteen hats reminiscent of Dr. Seuss characters, incense, face painting, and five-minute caricatures guaranteed to make you smile or your money back; the political and social booths of the humane society (“Adopt a Pet Today”), the always active Central Coast NOW chapter, Campus Crusade for Christ, Hemp for Life (Our ropes will never leave you hanging), Republicans, Democrats, Independents all trying to garner support, and the GreenLand Conservancy’s “Save Our Mountain” T-shirt and bumper stickers table next to the Ranch and Farm Producers’ Coalition table that hawked sweatshirts stating, “OUT OF WORK? EAT AN ENVIRONMENTALIST.”
“Meet you at Farmers’ ” had been a mating call among Cal Poly students for as long as I could remember. Walking through the crowded streets, feeling the familiar sensation of being a spawning salmon caught in a mindless migration, I thought briefly of Jack. We were only eighteen when he’d asked me to marry him one night as we sat on the curb, the only table accommodations at Farmers’, eating corn-on-the-cob drenched in sweet butter and sprinkled with Tabasco sauce.
Gabe, his face hard with anxiety, waited beside the small stage we’d set up for the storytellers. A Native American storyteller wearing a tall Stetson with a snakeskin hatband was spinning a tale about Coyote the Trickster. Gabe’s tense expression changed to an irritated scowl when he finally spotted me pushing through the crowd. He glanced at his watch.
“I know, I know,” I said, holding up my hands. “Constance showed up at the last minute with a bunch of friends and wanted a personal tour. I didn’t think it would take as long as it did.”
His face relaxed slightly, and he slipped a warm hand on the back of my neck. “I know you think I’m being overly protective, but I got an advance copy of tomorrow’s Freedom Press. I’m worried about the repercussions.”
“That stupid Will Henry. Is he trashing your department? I swear I’m going to buy one of those hemp ropes he’s always singing the praises of and wrap it around his scrawny—”
The crowd laughed at the storyteller’s imitation of a coyote’s yip-yip. Gabe steered me a few feet away from the noisy crowd. “It’s not about the department. The article’s about you . . . us.”
“Me? Us? What did we do?”
“It’s actually just a couple of paragraphs on the Tattler page. It mentions your propensity for stumbling upon dead bodies. The writer questions my ability to control my wife and wonders whether that incompetency carries over to my running of the department. He suggests that it’s the reason crime is increasing here in San Celina.”
“Control me!” I sputtered. “I’m not a trained seal, for cryin’ out loud. I bet Will Henry wrote that just ’cause I argued with him the other night. To imply you aren’t running the department right is absolutely ludicrous. They can’t blame you just because there’s more crime. That’s why they hired you. The crime came before you did. I am so pissed.”
Gabe touched a large finger to my mouth. “That’s not what has me worried. It’s not the first time I’ve been trashed by a newspaper reporter, and it won’t be the last. He also implies that I tell you too much, that you’re too involved in my work. He called you the Hillary Clinton of the San Celina Police Department.”
“Oh, great. I’m never going to hear the end of that from Elvia.”
“Whoever did this might think you know more than you do, and that puts you in a dangerous position.”
I looked up at his tense face, and guilt flowed through me like a river. “I honestly did try to stay out of it this time. I really don’t want to cause you any trouble with your job.”
Before we could continue, someone called Gabe’s name. Michael Haynes, current president of the city council, strode across the street. Dressed in expensive slacks, a white Izod golf shirt, and tasseled loafers, he gripped a folded newspaper under his arm. His tanned face was very unhappy.
“Ortiz,” he said. “We need to talk.”
Gabe turned back to me, his face weary. “Where are you going to be?”
“Right here in the middle of this crowd. I’ll be fine.”
He hesitated a moment. “Don’t be alone for a minute. Promise me.”
“I promise,” I said, giving the councilman a hard look.
He kissed me on the top of my head and turned to Michael Haynes. “Let’s go across the street to the Sundance,” Gabe said in his all-business voice, pointing at the small pub down the street. “It’ll be a bit more private than the street.”
Haynes shot me an irritated look and started talking before they’d moved a few feet. “This just won’t do, Ortiz. That wife of yours—”
I walked back to the storytellers’ stage, a combination of annoyance and dismay filling me. I hated being a liability to Gabe’s job, though I knew it wasn’t really my fault I was so deeply involved in this investigation. And it hurt me to see his reputation publicly maligned. When I saw Will Henry again, I was really going to let him have it with both barrels. Then again, a voice inside me pointed out, think of all the times you’ve read the Tattler and laughed. It’s different when the boot’s on the other foot, isn’t it?
On stage, the Native American had been replaced by a Jewish storyteller from Bakersfield. He was tall and thin, with alabaster skin and a long untrimmed red beard that he stroked as he talked. He sat on a low stool and drew his audience close with his pleasant, rumbling voice.
“Once, a long time ago, in a small village in Eastern Europe, there was a very important businessman in the community who took a disliking to the new rabbi. Every chance he could, he’d talk about the rabbi behind his back.
“ ‘Did you see his beard this morning?’ he’d whisper to another man in the town square. ‘Tangled as a rat’s nest. Did his mother never teach him to clean himself? Tsk, tsk.’ He’d shake his head and roll his eyes. ‘Did you hear what he taught in the temple this morning?’ he’d murmur to another man. ‘Where did he learn the Torah, from a goat herder?’
“Finally, after weeks of slandering the new rabbi, who patiently ignored the whispers swirling about him, the businessman was confronted by a respected friend and reprimanded for his cruel words. He repented and, feeling guilty for his behavior, presented himself to the rabbi and begged his forgiveness, asking to make restitution. The rabbi, being a kind and thoughtful man, considered the businessman’s request carefully and finally stated, ‘Take your finest feather pillow and climb to the top of the highest hill outside the village. When you reach the top, cut it open and scatter the contents to the winds. After you have done that, return to me.’
“The businessman went up to the highest hill with his fattest, most expensive down-filled pillow, tore it open, and watched the feathers skip across the sky in the brisk wind. He returned to the rabbi and said, ‘I’ve done as you asked. Am I now forgiven?’
“ ‘Almost,’ replied the rabbi. ‘There is still one more task before you. Go and gather all the feathers up again and put them back in the pillow.’
‘But that’s impossible,’ cried the businessman. ‘The wind has blown them away!’
“ ‘Yes,’ said the rabbi, who besides being kind and thoughtful, was also very wise. ‘And so it is also impossible to undo the damage your have done with your words, which can never be retrieved.’
“The businessman walked away, saddened by his behavior, but wiser from the lesson the rabbi had taught him.
“Lashon hora,” the storyteller told the crowd. “That’s Hebrew for hurtful speech. In the Jewish tradition, malicious gossip is not regarded lightly. The Hebrew term for words is devarim, which also means ‘things.’ And, my dear friends, words are indeed things, capable of doing the greatest good, but also the greatest evil. Whenever you are tempted to speak ill of another, remember the slanderous businessman and
his empty feather pillow.”
“Quite a story,” Ash’s smooth voice said behind me. “Makes one think.”
I looked up at him. “That’s the whole point of storytelling, isn’t it?”
He shrugged and stuck his hands into the pockets of his slacks. He wore a tan cashmere sweater with no shirt underneath. “What’s the deal with Mike Haynes and your husband? Saw them over at the Sundance, and Gabe didn’t look like he cared for what Mike was saying.”
I returned his shrug and didn’t answer. The Bakersfield man stepped off the stage, and Peter took his place. He was dressed in a Johnny Appleseed costume complete with a basket of apples he was handing out to the children in the crowd. “Trees,” he was saying. “When we destroy trees, we destroy ourselves.”
“Have you performed yet?” I asked, wanting to stay away from the subject of Gabe. There’d be enough people talking about him and me both tomorrow when the Freedom Press hit the stands.
“I go on after Peter. How’s ticket sales looking?”
“Advance sales were really good. We should have a big crowd tomorrow.” I yawned. “I think I’ll head on home. Looks like everything’s under control here, and we all have a full day tomorrow.”
He slipped his arm around my shoulders. “Where are you parked? I’ll walk you to your car.”
I ducked down and moved away from him, irritated by his familiarity. “No, that’s okay. You might miss your session.” Before he could protest, I waved a cheerful good-bye and melted into the crowd. I glanced back and caught him staring after me, an undecipherable look on his handsome face. I kept walking, wondering how I could get back to the truck and still keep the promise I made Gabe not to be alone. When I came to Blind Harry’s Bookstore, I decided to go in and see if Elvia was around. Though I’d called yesterday morning and left a message with one of her clerks about the Datebook Bum’s death, I’d been so busy for the last two days, I hadn’t even told her about Gabe giving me the homeless man’s diary. On the way to her office, I spotted Nick in the travel section of the bookstore.
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