Treble at the Jam Fest

by Leslie Budewitz

  I sat beside him and ran my hand over his sleek fur. From a distance, he looks black, but he’s a sable Burmese—dark chocolate with black pointing on his ears, face, feet, and tail. I’m no expert on cats. We had a cat at the Orchard when I was a kid, but after a hawk killed him and my sister bawled for days, my dad brought home Sparky the border collie and we became dog people. Sandburg was my first feline roommate, and until Pumpkin came, he ruled the place. They tussled with each other the first few weeks, hissing and snarling, one cat deliberately taking the other’s favored spot or eating out of the other’s bowl. I’d wondered about my sanity, thinking two regal pretenders could occupy six hundred square feet and leave room for me. But they’d since settled into an uneasy truce, sharing the throne.

  The metaphor ran its course. If he was the King and she the Queen, who was I?

  Their humble servant.

  Back in the kitchen, I poured another half glass and took a sip. Rebecca had said she and Martin had known each other in Austin, and she claimed credit for bringing him here. Too late to call her, but if I sent a text, she could answer when she wanted.

  Which turned out to be about three minutes later. No, she wasn’t aware of any other artists on this year’s schedule angry with Martin, but she wouldn’t know, would she? Since he hadn’t been talking to her much, and when he was, he obviously hadn’t been truthful. Sorry she wasn’t much help.

  She got that right.

  I grabbed the program and flipped to the page of featured performers, or in the trendy term, emerging artists. First on the list, courtesy of alphabetical order, was Gabrielle Drake. A smaller version of the photo on our poster smiled out at me. Truly a beautiful young woman. The program described her as “the voice of a new generation,” the words Gerry Martin had used to introduce her, saying she’d been raised in New York City and Connecticut, and now studied at Indiana University, “the finest school of music in the country.” I didn’t know about that, but I did know a little about sales puffery. Every performer listed was “the finest,” “iconic,” “stellar,” and otherwise super double groovy.

  Maybe Gabby Drake deserved all the praise. She’d outshone Gerry Martin, I knew that for sure.

  And I knew for sure that he hadn’t liked it one bit.

  She had no website, but I did find her Facebook page, her Twitter stream, and her Instagram feed. She’d be busy this summer, with performances scheduled all over the country. I had no idea that music festivals had become so popular—obviously the thing for the “emerging artist.” Ours was a little different, combining big-name concerts with daytime workshops, and welcoming serious adult musicians as well as the younger set.

  I clicked on a series of YouTube videos and sank deeper into my chair. Gabby had entered a nationwide contest for singer-songwriters. Each week, contestants were given a topic and a key, then required to write a song with those elements and submit a video. Fan voting ruled the early rounds. A clickable version of The Voice.

  Part way through Gabby’s first piece, Pumpkin jumped on the arm of my chair and trained her yellow-green eyes on the screen. I reached for my wine to prevent a clash between tail and glass.

  Gabby had an ethereal, haunting sound, her lyrics betraying her youth, all romantic angst and searching for identity. Her guitar playing, I couldn’t judge. A few early clips had obviously been recorded on a phone in her dorm room.

  With three weeks to go, Gabby clung to the top five. I voted for her latest song, then opened the festival’s website. Martin’s face shone from the front page. A small text box said the festival “mourned the passing of a great artist,” and dedicated this year’s events to his memory.

  Rebecca was still listed as Executive Director. I knew most of the board members, including Dave Barber and Marv Alden, but none well. Grant Drake, I’d just met.

  Meaning I’d have to work for insider knowledge.

  Though she wasn’t on the board, I started my search with Ann Drake, soprano. No joy. She must have performed under her maiden name. She’d mentioned the Met.

  “What do you think, Punk? Gabby’s a junior, so let’s call her twenty-one. Ann’s about my mother’s age. Can we narrow the search that way?”

  Bingo, by jingo, as Ned would say. Ann Fletcher had been a cast member for thirteen years. As she’d said, minor roles, some as understudy, and several tours. She, too, had attended Indiana University’s school of music.

  A twenty-five-year-old wedding announcement for Ann Fletcher and Grant Drake lauded her musical career, noting that the groom “worked in finance.” It also said the groom was attended by his sons. No children were mentioned for Ann. As I suspected, Gabby had been a later-in-life addition to the family.

  So what? None of that had anything to do with Gabby’s relationship with Gerry Martin, or with his death.

  The Drakes were protective. Righteous anger on a child’s behalf is understandable, even expected. But would a parent kill to avenge a slight against a child, if the slighter stood to harm that child’s professional aspirations?

  Extreme, yes, but hardly unheard of.

  If Martin had threatened to withdraw his support for her career, then her parents might have done almost anything.

  So might she, for that matter.

  I squinted, trying to picture who’d hung around after the performance, who might have heard more of Martin’s tirade. The other musicians had been busy on stage, unplugging amps and cords and packing up instruments.

  I frowned. When Martin stormed out of the courtyard, Jennifer Kraus had run after him. She might have seen or heard something. I hadn’t remembered that when I gave Deputy Oakland my statement, but he would have talked with her by now.

  What was I looking for? What was I expecting to find?

  I was too keyed up to sleep. I refreshed my wine, decided I’d had enough truffles, and sprinkled a few treats in the cats’ bowls. They came running from opposite ends of the cabin. Their bowls were mere inches apart, yet they managed to avoid each other completely, as if each had cast a protective spell around their territory.

  Heck, maybe they had.

  “The photographs.” My feline companions ignored me as I scrolled through the pictures I’d sent myself this morning from Derek D’Orazi’s phone. I sat at the kitchen island and studied them. Nothing jumped out at me: just dirt, smudged here and there. Who could say how a body had tumbled, whether it should have gone this way or that instead of that way or this?

  I shivered. Death is a messy business.

  Ten

  This is where you grew up?” Tanner’s voice rose in awe as I steered my sage green Subaru up the dirt lane leading to the Orchard. My family’s usual Sunday evening gathering had been converted into brunch so we could all attend the festival’s opening concert tonight. “No wonder you don’t want to leave.”

  “I left twice. First for college in Missoula, and then out to Seattle for ten years.” We rounded the last curve and I pulled up behind my mother’s ancient Volvo, parked underneath the carport. Why my parents had never enclosed it into a full-fledged garage, I had no idea. They’d bought the house from my grandparents, who built it when my dad was a toddler, his younger brothers in the offing, and people can be funny about changing family property.

  Adam unfolded himself from the backseat and stood next to Tanner as he absorbed the view. I took Adam’s hand. He gave me a smile that could melt glaciers.

  How had I ever walked away from that smile? Or more accurately, failed to notice it. Last night, over enchiladas and red wine, Tanner had gotten me to admit that I barely remembered Adam from college—not that Adam had any illusions otherwise.

  Back then, I’d been an overly studious business major, reeling from my father’s death, seeking comfort in my classes. Adam had been a tall, skinny woods geek, one of dozens who came west as much to play outdoors as to get an education. Not that there aren’t plenty of tre
es and lakes in Minnesota and the other places these boys—and a few girls—had left, but Montana had called to them.

  A handful stayed. “There’s the home you start from,” Adam had said last night, his fork full of chicken and tortillas, “and the home you make.”

  And the home you come back to, I thought as I gazed down the hill toward the lake, glistening in the mid-morning sun, and know the place for the first time. To mangle T. S. Eliot’s words.

  “Adam!” Landon’s shout broke my reverie, and nearly broke my eardrum. He tore through the orchard, the blossoms gone, the apple, cherry, and plum trees nearing full leaf.

  “Hey, buddy.” Adam crouched to six-year-old height and a handshake–fist bump ritual followed.

  “Jason Phillips.” My brother-in-law trailed his son and held out his hand to the newcomer. “That little wild man is mine, I’m afraid.”

  “Tanner Lundquist. What a great place.”

  “We were up in the tree house. You can see forever from there. Come on!” Landon took off, then stopped and looked back. “Come on, you guys.”

  Adam tossed me a grin, and he and Tanner loped after the boy.

  “I heard.” Jason’s voice cracked. “Thank you. Not a scratch on him.”

  “And he got Maine,” I said. Jason’s wry half smile mirrored my own, and he took the bag of cranberry-rhubarb muffins from me. I grabbed a chilled bottle of Prosecco from the backseat, and we headed for the house. My mother might tell her daughters we don’t need to bring anything to family gatherings, but neither of us believe her.

  A few minutes later, Tanner and I strolled through the upper meadow, a riot of green thanks to last week’s rain. “The property stretches to the top of this ridge.” I yanked down the sleeves of the striped hoodie Tanner had given me, and tugged the hem of my short black skirt. The nip in the air had prompted my mother to decree that we’d be enjoying Sunday brunch inside, instead of on the stone terrace with its lake and mountain views, so I was giving Tanner a quick pre-feast tour. “That’s Trumpeter Mountain beyond.”

  “Fresh snow,” Tanner said. “Somebody live in that shack? It’s about to fall down.” He rubbed an elbow and winced, as he had last night. Too much paddling?

  “My brother Nick used it as home base for years. He’s a wildlife biologist, specializing in wolf behavior. Last winter, he inherited a cottage and an old church a few miles away and that’s where he stays when he’s home, which isn’t often.” Nick had offered the cottage to me, but the prospect of living so close to where I’d found Christine—twice his fiancée but never his bride—dead made me too sad. I pointed northeast. “You met my sister and her family. They bought the original Murphy homestead, through those woods.”

  “Auntie! Tanner!” Landon summoned us to the main house.

  As we made our way back, I couldn’t help wondering what Tanner was thinking. Hands in his pants pockets, he seemed distracted, or tired. “A few family friends will be here, too. I hope the chaos doesn’t send you screaming back to the Midwest.”

  “Are you kidding?” His face came alive, Nordic blue eyes sparkling.

  Landon stood outside the kitchen door, hopping from one foot to the other. A hummingbird feeder hung from the roof line, and a Rufous dive-bombed him before taking a quick drink.

  That old feeling murmured in my gut, the one I couldn’t quite articulate. A mix of Why did you ever leave? and You had to leave, to come home.

  The air buzzed with my mother’s surprise. I glanced at my sister, the excitement building, but she’d bent down to wipe Landon’s face.

  I led Tanner inside. “Did you meet Heidi and Reg last night? They’re here, along with the rest of the family.”

  My mother put a champagne flute in Tanner’s hand and led him into the fray. My Murphy uncles and aunts had been summoned to hear the news. We get along fine, and both Mick and Dan live nearby, but they have their own families and Sunday traditions, and don’t usually join us.

  I filled a flute, took a tiny sip of Prosecco, and readied for the sneeze the first bubbles always bring. That done, I sat next to my cousin Molly on the couch. My mother believed a mid-century house deserved to be furnished with updated 1950s classics, like this three-seater with wide bentwood maple arms, its black fabric splashed with red hibiscus blossoms and jungle green foliage. Pepé, my mother’s Scottie, jumped into my lap.

  “Tell me about your new job,” I asked my cousin. “When do you hear if you passed the real estate exam?”

  “Soon. Soon. Part of my job is updating our MLS listings.” Molly’s got pale, freckled skin, lively green eyes, and curly reddish hair. Our grandfather Murphy had said she and her brother, and my uncle Dan’s kids, “had the map of Ireland on their faces.” We half-Italian kids he’d lovingly called “the dark ones.”

  That map crinkled now as she explained. “That stands for Multiple Listing Service, the computer system that shows every property available in the entire county. It’s crazy.”

  “But you love it.”

  Her eyes sparkled like the wine. “I love it.”

  “Good. If you turned me down for a job you hated, you’d be in serious trouble.”

  The tinkling of a spoon against a glass interrupted the conversation, and we all faced my mother, who stood in front of the marble-topped cabinet that served as the bar. In a black boat-neck T and a long skirt reminiscent of a poppy field gone mad, she glowed. Bill appeared beside her, his salt-and-pepper beard and hair neatly trimmed.

  I leaned forward on the couch, clutching my empty flute. The nerves along my shoulders and spine tingled, and I couldn’t keep from grinning.

  “Thank you all for joining us on this special morning,” Bill said. He reached for my mother’s hand, and anticipation rippled through the crowded living room. “We hope you’ll all join us in a few weeks for another special occasion. I’ve asked Fresca to marry me, and she’s agreed.”

  It takes a lot to quiet the Murphy clan. That did it. Briefly. Then Uncle Mick raised a half-full glass. “To the woman who made this Irishman drink fancy Italian wine on a Sunday morning—”

  “He’s on his second glass,” his wife interjected.

  “—and the man who’s made her happy again.”

  “Hear, hear.” “Cheers!” “Salut!”

  Happiness rang through the room, though no one sounded genuinely surprised. The only surprise to me was that my mother had waited so long. She’d dated, and over the years I’d met several beaus who’d clearly been head over heels for her. But she’d held back, and I’d never known why.

  I raised a toast with the rest of the family. Beside me, Adam gave me another of those toe-tingling smiles. More Prosecco flowed, with and without fruity additions—the peach puree of a Bellini, or the orange juice that makes a Mimosa. I wondered about other flavors. A dollop of strawberry-rhubarb jam might be terrific, if unconventional.

  Wedding plans were revealed—the first day of summer, in the orchard.

  And then it was time to fill our plates. With all of us and my uncles’ families, we overflowed the dining room and living room. Molly and her younger brother, Henry, sat on the floor. It was a sweet house, surprisingly modern, but the remodeled kitchen was due for another update.

  The couch squeaked as Adam and Tanner sat on either side of me, and Tanner rose instinctively. “Sit,” I said. “It’s sturdier than it looks.”

  They sat. So did Pepé, her nose in the air. I pried a bite of bacon out of an omelet muffin—a mini crustless quiche—and raised it like a communion host before letting her gobble it.

  “Is that how you make friends, Erin? Bribery?” Uncle Mick said. He could have been my father’s twin.

  “Whatever works.”

  “What do you call this?” At the buffet Tanner pointed to a slice of sweet flat bread—or what passes for flat bread in classic Italian cooking—studded with orange peel and r
aisins, and topped with sliced almonds and powdered sugar.

  “Schiacciata.” Skee-yah-CHAH-tah.

  “What do you call this?” He pointed to a fat sausage grilled with peppers and spinach.

  “Salsicce con pepperoni y spinaci.”

  “And this?”

  “You idiot,” Adam broke in, “don’t you recognize a sliced pear when you see one?”

  “From the Conti family orchard in California. One of my mother’s brothers raises tree fruit, and the other grows grapes and runs a winery there.”

  But despite the verbal enthusiasm, I couldn’t help noticing that Tanner didn’t eat a lot.

  Conversation ran the gamut: Tanner’s business and his thoughts about Montana. Henry’s summer internship. More about Molly’s new job. She and my mother exchanged knowing looks, and I wondered if Fresca had helped Molly land the post at Jewel Bay Realty.

  I ate another egg thing, apologizing to Pepé for eating the bacon myself.

  One voice was missing from the cacophony. I glanced around, wondering where Chiara had gone. “Outside,” Jason mouthed.

  I excused myself, dropping my dishes in the kitchen on my way out. The morning chill had burned off, leaving a clear sky, the orchard grasses damp around my bare ankles. The tree house has always been my hideout, but when Chiara needs to get away, she takes refuge in her own special spot.

  The wild shrubs had not yet fully exploded into summer glory—another day or two of rain and a blast of sunshine and they’d be thick with new growth. I made my way up the narrow path and found my sister on a giant rock beside the stream, arms wrapped around her knees, long skirt covering her feet. The spring green fabric was nearly the same color as the thick moss at the trail’s edge.

  Jason likes to say that in our family, Murphy’s Law means no silence can last longer than two seconds. But even I can keep my mouth shut sometimes.

  “I was fine with it, when she told us last week,” she said finally, sounding exhausted. “I love Bill, and he adores her. It’s just that—oh, God. Dad’s been gone for years, and nothing could ever bring him back, and sometimes I can’t remember him quite right, you know? It feels so unfair.”