His tongue probed deeply, insistently. She caught the flutter of his eyelids that meant any hesitation was forgotten. Pulling her into his arms, Carl guided her over his lap. “You’re a witch, you know,” he said, with deep, relaxed pleasure on his face.
“I know.”
NINE
KATE LAY IN CARL’S ARMS and fell into a deep oblivious sleep. She dreamt she was falling again through space, but softly this time, floating, weightless. She reached her hands out toward an amorphous figure retreating ahead of her down the beach stairs, always just out of her grasp. The figure turned toward her, but she couldn’t focus her sleep-filled eyes. Then, just at the instant of recognition, she startled awake.
The dream left her with a vague, lingering feeling of disappointment. Just a few more seconds, she thought, closing her eyes against the bright morning sun, and I would have known. She stretched, drifting to another level of alertness. But known what, she wondered? As real as it seemed, it was only a dream.
Reaching out, she felt the empty space on the bed beside her. Carl was already gone. She rolled over onto his pillow and breathed in the faint, woodsy scent on the pillowcase and thought how nice it would be to wake up with someone there again, a little cuddling and conversation before the day began. The way it had been with Carl a long time ago, before their relationship fell apart and any conversation could lead to a blow up that might ruin a day, or a lifetime.
She got up and dressed quickly, pulling on a pair of shorts and a knit shirt, sliding her feet into comfortable old sandals. She went downstairs in a rush, a little apprehensive about Carl’s expectations after last night gnawing in the corners of her mind.
Toneless humming came from behind the kitchen door. As she pushed open the swing door, too late to back out, Kate realized who it was.
Helga stood at the sink drying dishes.
“You don’t need to do that,” Kate said, planting what she hoped would pass for a cheerful smile on her face.
“Esperanza came in so late, I wanted to help out this morning. Let me fix you something to eat.”
“I’m not very hungry.” Kate was famished, but she didn’t want to get stuck in the kitchen with her ex-mother-in-law. “Have you heard anything about Uncle Miles?”
“Carl talked to Esperanza when she came in. There was no change during the night.” Helga went to the freezer for a bag of ice. “I was just taking some iced tea out to the terrace for Mina. Would you like some?”
“Sounds good,” Kate said, leaning across the kitchen counter to look out the window at the first clear sky for almost a week. Sky that bright in the morning meant a hot day.
Helga fussed, preparing a small silver tray with tall iced glasses, a crystal pitcher of tea and lemon, a single pink rose in a slender vase. It looked very formal and elegant. “You want sugar? Mina doesn’t. The only sugar bowl I can find is this big blue thing.”
“I don’t want sugar. The blue bowl is Esperanza’s. Takes about six teaspoons in her coffee.”
“I know. Mexican coffee, she calls it. She made me some.”
Kate watched Helga’s graceful, athletic movements as she moved around the kitchen. “Carl told me you had a date last night. Did you have a nice time?”
“Oh, yes.”
From her expression Kate suspected sex was less complicated for Helga than for her son. “Anyone I know?”
“Have you met Sergeant Green? He sometimes comes around with Lieutenant Tejeda.”
“He seems like a nice person.” Kate had to suck in her cheeks to keep herself from adding, “But he’s thirty years younger than you.”
“He is nice. He’s so smart. He’s working with the lieutenant over at Miles’s house right now. I thought I would take them something cold to drink later on.” She paused and looked down at the tray, moving her lips as she counted glasses and spoons. “Do you think that would be okay?”
“Sure thing.” She’d have liked to take something over to them, herself, just to find out what they were doing.
Kate opened the big tin bread box and looked inside for the stiff, waxed bakery bag Esperanza often hid under the loaf of bread for her midmorning snack. It was part of a silent joke between them; Esperanza, always on a diet, never admitted losing her private stash on the rare occasions Kate looted it. This morning the bag held two flaky croissants.
“Esperanza brought that in this morning,” Helga said. “Let me cook you some eggs to go with it.”
“No, thanks. This is enough.” Kate dropped the bag on the tea tray, offending its symmetry.
Helga winced, reaching for the tray.
Kate picked it up. “I’ll carry it out for you.”
“Thank you, honey. I’ll come join you when I’ve finished up in here.”
Kate crossed the lawn to the latticed gazebo at the edge of the bluff. Mina sat there facing the beach, elbows on the old glass-topped wicker table, head bowed low as she wrote something in her inhibited little scrawl. She looked so small and vulnerable outlined against the horizon that Kate felt a sudden rush of affection for her. Putting down the tray, she bent slightly to smooth Mina’s collar, ruffled by the wind.
Mina reached up reflexively to pat Kate’s arm. “How are you today, darling?”
“A bit slow. Too much sleep, I think,” Kate said. She pulled up an old wicker rocker that creaked comfortably as she sat. Scooting the chair closer to the table she upset a pile of cards and letters on the table in front of Mina. “You look industrious. What are you up to?”
“F’s and G’s. I’m responding to some of the condolences people wrote about your mother. There are so many!” She snapped the lid on her thick old fountain pen and reached for a glass of tea. Holding up a silver spoon to dazzle in the bright light, she smiled at Kate. “My, my, aren’t we being grand?”
“Helga is having fun with the silver service. Do we need to do all this letter writing now?”
“I need something to keep myself occupied. And you’ve been through enough, darling. I didn’t want you burdened with it.”
“Thanks. I’d make a hash of it anyway. I’m no good at that sort of thing.”
“I’m not either, actually. I wish your mother were here.” Mina stifled a nervous little giggle. “Save us a lot of bother. She was always so good at dumb little notes. She knew exactly what to say and when to say it.”
“She did, didn’t she?” Kate raised her glass and drank the strong, bitter tea. Mother was always so damned right about everything. Kate set her glass down too hard.
Careful as always to turn the liver spots so they weren’t noticeable, Mina rested her chin on her hands. She sighed. “Look at those little ones down on the beach. We used to sit up here together, your mother and I, and watch you kids play down there, you and Reece and Nugie. It doesn’t seem so long ago.” Eyes misty, Mina looked over at Kate. “Do you ever think about Nugie?”
“All the time.”
“She was such a sweet girl, wasn’t she? Such a waste.” Mina shook her head. “We’ve never talked about Nugie, you and I.”
“No. I don’t know why you’re bringing it up now. Unless.… Has Lieutenant Tejeda been talking to you?”
“That dark policeman?”
“Mina, for chrissake.”
“Yes, he was asking,” Mina bristled. “But I would never say anything to him about my Nugie. If you two girls thought it was none of my business, it’s certainly none of his.” She smiled but it didn’t cover the anger in her voice. Keeping her eyes averted, she said, “I only wish you two had come to me before you went to Mexico. Could a baby have been such a tragedy?”
“I don’t know. I felt it was Nugie’s decision to make.”
“But you helped her once she made her decision.”
“I’m sorry, Mina. I don’t know what to say to you.” Hot wind ruffled the stack of correspondence. For some reason, right now talking about Nugie was harder than talking about Mother. Maybe it always would be.
Kate went over to the rail at th
e edge of the bluff and opened the bag of croissants. She meant to eat only one because they were so rich, but when the first one was gone she began pulling bits off the second, until there was nothing in the bag but crumbs. She tossed the crumbs down the face of the deeply eroded bluff and let the pigeons and gulls battle over them.
“We’d better reseed the bank down here before it rains,” she said. A nice, neutral topic. “This dry weather has killed off the ice plant we put in after those kids set it on fire last summer. There isn’t enough to hold the bank if it rains.”
Mina was beside her, leaning over the railing, examining the bank like a high-priced botanist. Thank God, Kate thought, I’ve defused her.
“How did you know where to take her?” Mina asked.
“I don’t know,” Kate said, annoyed. “Didn’t Miles tell you everything?”
“He told me that your mother instructed Esperanza where to take Nugie.”
Kate almost choked. “How would my mother know about an abortion clinic?”
“She just always seemed to know about those things,” Mina said, her knuckles bloodless in their stranglehold on the rail. “She helped me find one once.”
“You!”
“Don’t sound so shocked. Your generation wasn’t the first to need that particular service.”
“I am shocked. I just can’t imagine you and my mother.…”
“It’s not what you think. A friend, not a friend actually, but a girl who worked here, asked us to help her get an abortion. I helped her as I suppose you helped Nugie.”
“Wait a minute,” Kate moved closer. “Was this the girl pregnant with Miles’s baby?”
“Well, if you know the story, there’s no point in repeating it.”
“I don’t know the story,” Kate protested. “Who was the father, Miles or Daddy?”
“Could have been either. Or neither.” Mina relaxed a little against the rough rail, snagging the fine light weave of her skirt. “I’m only sure that it wasn’t Dolphy’s, because he’d been in Europe too long.”
“But there actually was no baby because the girl had an abortion?”
Mina nodded. “Can you imagine not wanting a baby?”
“Not personally. But then, for me, the subject never came up.” Kate remembered what Reece had said, “Can you trust what Mina tells you?” Was there no bastard after all? “The abortion, when was it, exactly?”
“Oh, golly.” Mina scratched her head. “As I said, Dolph was gone. He was away, I think, from late nineteen forty-two until the spring of nineteen forty-six.” She tapped her fingers against the rail, counting silently. “Fall of nineteen forty-three. Late fall.”
“And there was only one pregnant girl, right?”
“Good heavens, Kate,” Mina laughed. “You make us sound like orgiasts. There might have been dozens, but that’s the only one I know about. Why?”
“Remember the photograph I found on the beach? The little boy and the woman? I wondered if it might be the bastard and his mother.”
“Of all the crazy ideas!”
“What if it is him?” Kate persisted. “What if the girl didn’t go through with the abortion?”
Mina gave her a long, cold look. “Are you all right, Kate?”
“Sure.”
“I mean, you’re not fixating on this other abortion because you feel responsible for what happened to Nugie, are you?”
“Fixated?” Kate laughed. “What have you been reading? Anyway, this has nothing to do with Nugie. And although I feel bad about Nugie, I wasn’t responsible for her death, except in a peripheral way. If anyone is fixated on Nugie, it’s you.”
“That’s cruel.”
“I know. Sorry.”
“Nugie was the closest I came to having a daughter of my own. Now there’s only Reece.” Mina sighed deeply. “And you, of course,” she said, too late.
“Of course,” Kate said evenly. She covered Mina’s hand with her own, aching for her, seeing herself childless and alone at Mina’s age.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, sweetheart. You always had so many people around to love you. Reece and Nugie had only my sister and me.”
“They had fathers.”
“Oh yes, lots of fathers. Just like Carl. It’s not the same as what you had. How many times was Helga married?”
“Three, I think. I’m not sure.” Kate reached for her glass and took a long drink. She felt hot and prickly all over.
“Now he has Dolph,” Mina said.
The comment caught the tea halfway down. “As a father?”
“Dolph says Carl has a mind like Miles and Archie, like he would hope his own son would’ve had, if there’d been one.”
“And do you feel motherly toward Carl?”
“Hardly.” Mina bent toward the table and gathered her correspondence into a neat pile. Then she patted her smooth, silver hair, a quick check for strays. In a voice that was little more than a conspiratorial whisper she said, “Don’t look around. Your mother-in-law is coming. We’ll talk later. One thing I must say about Helga, she has kept her figure.”
“My ex-mother-in-law, you mean.” Kate turned and watched Helga glide across the lawn, her cotton skirt playing gracefully around her legs. From the distance, Kate thought, she could be mistaken for a beautiful, younger woman. The illusion dissolved as Helga neared. The strong angularity of her face, even softened as it was now by a wispy aureole of hair that had escaped from her coronet of braids, made her whole body seem coarse.
“May I join you?” Helga asked with her practiced gentility, as she sat down in a low wicker chair. The sweet smile she gave Mina and Kate seemed so incongruous on her long face. “I have good news. The doctor called from the hospital. He said that Mr. Byrd is stirring. He might wake up.”
“Terrific.” Kate turned to Mina. “Do you want me to drive you to the hospital so you can be with him?”
“What, darling?” Mina turned her face to Kate, but her eyes were far away.
“I said, do you want me…”
“Oh yes, I heard you. I can drive myself.” Mina stood and started picking up her things. “Someone has to be with Miles, of course, but waiting is so boring. I’ll go now if you’ll promise to come by later, bring some cards. We’ll play some rummy. Or bluff poker.”
“Okay. If you won’t cheat this time.” Kate put a hand on the pile of letters. “I’ll take care of this stuff. You go ahead.”
“I’m going, I’m going.” Mina dropped her pen and box of stationery in Kate’s lap.
“Give me a call if anything happens,” Kate said to Mina’s retreating back. Without turning around, Mina waved a hand in acknowledgment.
“Will she be all right alone?” Helga asked.
“For a while, anyway. I have to get some work done this morning. I’m so far behind.” She stood up, filling her arms with Mina’s correspondence. “I hate to go in, it’s so nice out here.”
“I’ll walk in with you, dear,” Helga said, picking up the tea tray. They walked slowly toward the house. “It will be a great relief for you all when your uncle comes home, won’t it?”
“Comes home?” The idea stopped Kate in her tracks. “Where will he come home to? I know he’d never want to live with me or with Dolphy, he’s such a private person. But he can hardly live alone again after this episode.”
“Something to think about, isn’t it?” Helga gazed off toward Miles’s house. “Such a pretty place. Be a shame for it to lie empty.”
“Poor Miles,” Kate sighed.
“Kate, I know you have more important things on your mind,” Helga said, her voice theatrically serious. “But I want to ask your advice about something.”
“Sure.”
“I brought some of Carl’s old trophies and plaques in case he would like them for his new office. Do you think his new place is too sophisticated for them?”
“No office is ever too sophisticated for football trophies, Helga. I think he’ll love them.” Kate juggled the things
in her hands so she could open the back door. She held it for Helga with her shoulder.
“Oh! I forgot.” Helga slid in past her, being careful not to upset the glasses of tea. “There’s a man called Sy Ratcher in the living room with Reece. He said he has a buyer for your house. Reece thought you might want to avoid going in there.”
“No,” Kate said. “I think it’s time for a little talk with Mr. Ratcher.”
With her fingers, Kate combed through her windblown hair as she walked down the hall to the study.
“Kate.” Sy rose and took her hand in both of his. His skin felt dry, lizardy, like his scuffed imitation-reptile shoes. The shoes didn’t seem to go with the rest of his rig, a mortician-gray three-piece suit, a red polyester tie pompously done in a fat four-in-hand knot tucked up among his chins. He presented such a contrast to Reece, who slumped in the corner of a sofa, his bare, sandy legs stretched out in front of him, a look of long-suffering boredom on his face.
“Sorry you were kept waiting, Sy,” Kate said as she sat down next to Reece. “What’s on your mind?”
A fine sweat shone on Ratcher’s close-shaven cheeks. “You look wonderful, Kate.”
“Oh, come on.” Reece rolled his eyes. “Let’s cut the preliminaries and get to it. Kate, Sy says he was working on a little development with your mother.”
Kate saw Sy wince. “What sort of development?” she asked.
“We hadn’t put any signatures to anything yet, but.” Sy reached beside the chair and brought up a thick briefcase. Balancing the case on his knees, he shuffled through a stack of legal-size manila folders and came up with a thick, time-yellowed document. “You know what this is, of course.”
No Harm (The Kate Teague Mysteries Book 1) Page 10