Goose in the Pond

by Earlene Fowler

  Disappointed, I put the lid back on the container and thought for a moment. Where else could the homeless store things? I got up and went to the phone and dialed an acquaintance, Sister Clare, down at the Mission Food Bank. A nun who was also a social worker and ombudsman for the homeless, she probably knew their world better than anyone else. I’d met her when the co-op had donated a quilt for a benefit auction to raise money for the food bank’s new commercial-size freezer.

  “Sister Clare, this is Benni Harper. I’m not sure you remember me—”

  “Sure do,” she said, her slight Scottish accent denoting her birthplace. “Run that museum, you do. What’s up? Got a pretty penny for that quilt. We do thank you.”

  “Anytime, really. Our artists have a real commitment to helping the community. I have a question about the homeless.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Where do they keep their possessions?”

  “What they don’t keep with them, they usually keep down at their camps. But they sometimes split their stuff up and store it in different places around the city. Lots of times they even forget where, poor souls. A lot of them just are singing their own tune, you know? Why? You looking for something specific?”

  “Not really. It was just a question.”

  “Doing a little investigating, are you?”

  “Well . . .” I hedged, not wanting to lie to a nun.

  “You don’t have to answer to me. I think a wife should be involved in her husband’s life. And I think the journalists in this town are doing a real injustice to Chief Ortiz. He’s a fine man. Since he’s been chief, his officers have treated the homeless with real dignity. He concentrates on the real criminals, not the poor disenfranchised souls the rich folks think muck up our pretty streets. The only other thing I can tell you is that the shelter down by the bus station keeps lockers for the homeless. They have to be looking for a job, though, and they’re inspected regularly. First sign of drugs or booze, they kick ’em out.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll give them a try.”

  “Tell Frank I said you were okay. He’s a little distrustful sometimes.”

  The shelter was only two blocks away. Frank’s suspicious demeanor disappeared when I dropped Sister Clare’s name.

  “Sister Clare’s good people. There’s about fifty lockers. We provide the locks, but we keep a copy of their key. We do spot inspections, but usually everyone follows the rules. They use them mostly to keep clothes in.”

  I described the Datebook Bum to him.

  “Oh, you mean, Mr. Iacocca.”

  “What?”

  He laughed and brushed some invisible dust off the sleeve of his green double-knit shirt. “That’s what we call him. Sure, he kept some stuff here. Haven’t seen him for a few days, though.” He leaned close and said in a confidential voice. “Technically I shouldn’t keep his stuff. Guy’s never going to get a job, but he’s a nice old coot and doesn’t bother nobody. I made an exception.”

  I told him about the police finding the man’s body and the futile search for any family.

  “That’s real pissant,” he said, his voice genuinely sympathetic. “I always wondered about him. Figured a guy like him musta been somebody at one time.”

  “About his stuff—”

  “Ain’t much, but you’re welcome to look at it. Long as Sister C says you’re okay, you’re okay.”

  He brought back a small stained duffel bag. “You may as well keep this junk,” he said, sliding it across the counter to me. “Nobody else is going to claim it, and we’ll just throw it out.”

  “Thanks,” I said, grabbing the bag.

  In the car I unzipped it. There was a pair of clean khaki pants, a bunch of pens, and wrapped in a threadbare towel about fifty rainbow-colored computer disks with all the labels torn off. Deep in my gut I had a strong suspicion, or hope, that they were Nora’s missing disks. Would her last column be on one of them? And the question remained, where did the Datebook Bum find these and who threw them out?

  Now you should go to Gabe. I glanced at my watch. But if he’d just got back from confession, the last thing I wanted to do was start another fight. At least give him time to do penance before I forced him to sin again.

  One more hour or so wouldn’t matter, I convinced myself while heading for Elvia’s store, the only place there was a computer at my disposal. She wasn’t working tonight, but her clerks knew me and let me into her office. I switched on her IBM and pulled out the disks, my heart sinking just a little. It was going to be a tedious business. I glanced at her expensive desk clock. Five-forty. I could work until about six-thirty or so without anyone wondering where I was. Then I’d have to call home and make some excuse as to why I was late.

  Not being an expert on the computer by any means, it didn’t take me long to realize that Elvia’s software program was different from the one Nora used. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the disks to read. I’d have to take these somewhere else, someplace that had a large variety of software programs on the hard drive. A computer store? I wasn’t sure that they’d let me use a computer for hours. If I walked in carrying fifty some-odd disks, it would be pretty obvious I wasn’t there to buy a computer. The only other place I knew with that sort of equipment was the library. I hesitated for a moment, then shook off my uncertainty. It was a public place, and no one would have a clue as to what I was doing.

  I glanced at the clock again, then picked up Elvia’s phone. Rita was the only one home, and I quickly told her to leave a note telling Dove and Gabe I’d be at the library for a few hours. I shoved all the disks in my backpack and headed for the library.

  I was disappointed to find all six computers in the computer lab full, with no time slots open until the next day.

  “Is it always this crowded?” I asked the clerk.

  “Sorry, school’s back in session. You know how that goes.”

  My desperate look must have touched him.

  “Say, you could always use one in the children’s department,” he suggested, “if you don’t mind sharing the room with kids. The computers are a little older, but they still work okay.”

  “Do they have a variety of software programs in them?” I asked.

  “Not if you’re looking for the absolute latest, but they have the old standards.”

  “I’ll give it a try. Thanks.”

  I only had to wait a half hour in the children’s department.

  “Monday nights aren’t as popular,” the library clerk told me when I paid my two dollars. “Parents are still recuperating from the weekend. Wednesdays are another story. You’d have to sign up a week ahead of time for Wednesday.”

  The computer room was in the corner of the children’s department, with a small glass window and a cooling system that obviously needed work. The air in the room was freezing. There were four computers, but only one was occupied. The young girl and her mother were using Print Shop to make invitations for her upcoming birthday party. I switched on the old IBM, pulled out the stack of disks, and stuck the first one in.

  My prayers were answered when I saw that one of the software programs matched Nora’s. I opened the first file and scanned the table of contents. It was a list of stories based on African animals and folklore. I opened each file and read the first few lines to make sure that’s really what the file contained, then opened the next file. When I finished one disk, I popped it out and opened another one. It was a tedious search. Nora had accumulated a vast library of stories and storytelling reference materials, and she was a meticulous recorder. I finished scanning the twenty-third disk and leaned back in my chair, rubbing my neck, almost ready to toss in the towel and take these to Gabe. Let his detectives perform this excruciatingly boring work.

  Number twenty-seven changed my mind.

  15

  IT WAS NORA’S last column. The one that should have run this week instead of the one about me and Gabe. And would have if she hadn’t been killed.

  I scanned down the pa
ge looking for a clue as to who might have killed her. As with all the other Tattler columns, she didn’t name names, but there were a few people I didn’t have trouble picking out. She hinted at a deadly secret in the past of a storyteller known for her animal tales with a touch of Tabasco: “Believe me, this storyteller’s secret will give y’all more bang than a sawed-off shotgun,” Nora had written. I flinched inwardly at her cruel remark. Nobody who knew Evangeline would miss that one.

  Nora also wrote about the financial background of another storyteller who was “mired so deep in Mississippi mud it’d take a semi to pull them out.” I knew that was Ash, and so would anyone else with half a brain. Then she wrote about a library employee involved with the storytelling festival who had quite an exciting story involving lust, revenge, and murder. That maybe it was time the tale was told. She was deliberately obtuse with this one. A library employee? The three employees affiliated with the storytelling festival were Dolores, Jillian, and Nick. What secrets could each of them be hiding? Lust, revenge, murder? Certainly secrets many people had killed for. But I couldn’t imagine her deliberately revealing something that could hurt her brother. They’d always been so close, but Nora, even according to Nick, had changed after her son’s accident. And then there was the disagreement they had over the land she inherited, that last argument in the library—

  I rubbed my temples. Three library employees. A body that would have been literally deadweight. I couldn’t see how either Jillian or Dolores could physically manage to move the body out to a car and down to the lake. That left Nick. No, I protested mentally. No way. Not Nick.

  The only thing to do was give Gabe the disk and let him and his investigators decide what to do. Maybe information on it would correspond with something said in one of their suspect interviews.

  I started closing the program when a voice behind me said, “All through now?”

  I jumped at the sound of Jillian’s voice and fumbled for the off switch on the computer. “Uh, sure—” I stammered. “Just doing some research for Dove. Historical Society stuff.” I looked down, cursing my expressive face.

  “Well, the library’s been closed for half an hour. I was making the last rounds and saw you in here.”

  I looked through the small window of the computer room. The library was completely dark. Apparently the children’s librarians had forgotten I was in here. I looked back at her, realizing something else. Something I hadn’t noticed when I sat down. The screen of the computer I’d been using was visible to anyone standing at the window. Anything on it was completely readable to someone with halfway decent eyes.

  Anything.

  The palm-sized handgun Jillian pulled from the pocket of her Armani suit was as elegant as she was. At least I’d die with class.

  “You really never know when to stop, do you, Benni?” she asked.

  “You?” I said. “But why?”

  “You know why,” she snapped.

  I started to protest, then stopped. Though I can be very stupid sometimes, I wasn’t stupid enough to argue with a crazy woman pointing a gun at me. Especially when she’d obviously killed once already. She must think that I’d found something that incriminated her on the disks. That means she couldn’t have read them from the window.

  “Walk ahead of me,” she said, gesturing with the gun. I contemplated one of those quick, clever moves you see on TV—karate-chopping her hand, then kicking the gun across the floor. Then I pictured it failing and imagined what a bullet tearing into the soft skin of my stomach would feel like. Better rethink that plan.

  As I walked past her into the dark library I thought, Use what’s around you to your advantage.

  The next thing I knew a trainload of firecrackers went off in my head, and everything went black.

  It was still black when I regained consciousness. Black and dusty and cold. The floor I was curled up on was concrete. A generator vibrated the air around me. My hands and feet were tied, and my head throbbed like an abscessed tooth.

  I tried to struggle loose, but whoever had trussed me up knew something about knots. I had no idea how long I’d been out, but my extremities were already numb. Lying there on the icy floor, I worried about permanent damage. A hysterical laugh fluttered deep in my chest. Permanent damage? The woman had already killed once. Damage to the nerves of my feet and hands was the least of my worries.

  I lay my head back down on the concrete and tried to assess my situation. Keep calm, I said, feeling an uncontrollable trembling start. I blinked my eyes over and over, trying to force them to adjust to the darkness. My skull felt as fragile as an egg, and I would have given anything at that moment for a handful of aspirin and a soft pillow. Think, I commanded my brain. Where could you be that would be this dark and cold? But my brain wouldn’t function, and all I could do was swallow the sob starting in my chest. Please, God, I begged. That’s all I could think to pray. Please, God.

  I drifted in and out of consciousness, so it seemed like hours later when I heard a door open and the click of footsteps coming down stairs. A single fluorescent light came on, and I looked up into Jillian’s face. Then I realized where I was. The library’s basement. Used to store bulk office supplies, old weeded books waiting for the Friends of the Library’s yearly sale, holiday decorations, and custodial supplies, it was a standing joke among the employees.

  “Going down in the Pit,” I’d heard them say to each other. “Send the search and rescue if I’m not back in an hour.” Was this where she killed Nora and hid her body until taking it over to the lake? It would have been the perfect place. My stomach churned. Were the ropes I was bound with the ones used to strangle Nora? I closed my eyes and contemplated whether screaming would help.

  “She’s awake now,” she said. Even in the fuzziness of my confused brain, I wondered about her pronoun. Who was she talking to?

  “What are we going to do?” a woman’s voice answered her. “Madre de Dios, what are we going to do?”

  “Dolores, would you shut up,” Jillian snapped. “I need to think.”

  I opened my eyes and looked up into Dolores’s frightened face. Jillian and Dolores? They were in this together? Boy, was Gabe going to be surprised. A wave of pain zigzagged through my head. Unfortunately I wasn’t going to be around to see it.

  “Sit up,” Jillian said, reaching over and pulling me up by the upper arm. I leaned against some pasteboard boxes and finally found my voice.

  “You two killed Nora?” I stuttered, my words tangling around a tongue that felt thick, like someone had shot it full of novocaine. “Why?”

  “You know why,” Jillian said. “I had a feeling you found the missing Tattler columns. Where did you find them?”

  “The Datebook Bum,” I said. “I think he found them in the library trash . . . but they don’t incriminate you. Not really.”

  “They say enough,” she snapped. “Enough to get me”—her eyes trailed over to Dolores—“us, questioned again, and I can’t afford to let that happen.”

  Dolores’s dark eyes looked as wild and frightened as a trapped animal’s. I realized what Jillian was worried about now. If the police questioned Dolores again, there was a good chance that this time they could probably break her down.

  Through the basement’s open door I heard a buzzer. Apparently someone was at the employees’ back entrance upstairs.

  Jillian frowned, then turned to Dolores and said, “Watch her.” She walked up the stairs and pulled the heavy door behind her.

  I opened my eyes and stared at Dolores. She stared back, rubbing her hands over and over. High-school Shakespeare flashed through my mind. A picture of Lady Macbeth trying to rub the imaginary blood from her hands.

  “Dolores, how did you get involved with this?” I whispered.

  “I can’t talk to you,” she said, her face lightly sheened with perspiration.

  Think about how you can use her. Remember the things you’ve seen on TV. Go for the weaker partner. She’s alone and frightened. Use that. It’
s what Gabe would do.

  Gabe. I couldn’t let these people kill me. He’d never forgive himself. The guilt would eat him alive.

  Guilt. My disoriented brain floated back to a good-natured argument he and I had recently had about that subject. I pictured his smiling face.

  “Catholic guilt is worse,” he’d declared while scrambling us some eggs a few weeks ago. Except for his wonderful Mexican hot chocolate and spaghetti, they were the only thing he knew how to cook.

  “Ha!” I’d said. “That’s because you’ve never felt Baptist guilt. You all at least get to have fun and then go to confession afterward. We feel guilty the whole time we’re sinning.” I watched him put jalapeño peppers, fresh onions, cheddar cheese, and a dash of Tabasco in the eggs.

  “But we have to worry about dying before we get to confession. Most of you Protestants believe that once saved, always saved, no matter what you do afterwards. You can die in the middle of adultery and still squeeze through those pearly gates.”

  I laughed and stuck my fork into the finished eggs. “That may be technically true, but I’m sure it’s not something that Mac would want touted as a major selling point for the Baptist faith.” I took a big bite, savoring the taste. “You know, Friday, if nothing else, I would have married you for your huevos.”

  “Is that right?” He grinned at my unintended double entendre.

  I smacked him in the chest. “You know what I mean.”

  “Well, I can tell you one thing about guilt, whether it’s Baptist, Catholic or whatever. Except for the sickest sociopaths, everyone feels it at some time. And I’ve often even wondered about them. There’s no doubt, though, that without it we’d definitely have a lot fewer criminals behind bars.”

  I opened my eyes and looked at Dolores’s agitated face. She’d come out of the confessional just after Gabe went in. Had she confessed to her part in concealing Nora’s murder? If she had, that meant she probably felt guilty about it. I could use that. Right now it was the only weapon I had.