A Drunkard's Path

by Clare O'Donohue

  Eleanor and I cut strips for the chain and sewed them together. Then we cut and sewed the strips to create the chain blocks. We cut the squares of yellow floral and added the strips at each side to create the background blocks. It was amazing how quickly two people, working side by side, could accomplish their goal. Within a few hours we had the quilt top I’d wanted. At six feet square it was large enough for a nap—or to hide under if I ever needed to run away from my problems again.

  Although the entire time we had been working on my quilt I’d forgotten the murders and all the unanswered questions, as we finished the last block, those anxieties flooded back. I looked over at my grandmother, who had done so much for me and had been such a good friend, and I felt worried that in trying to protect her I was, instead, betraying her.

  “How much do you know about Oliver?” I ventured as we pinned the top to the batting and backing.

  “As much as you can know about a person after a few weeks,” she said.

  “But you love him.”

  She looked up at me. “Yes, I suppose I do.”

  “Isn’t that kind of fast?”

  “At my age I don’t have a lot of time to waste on silliness.”

  “Is he worthy, though? Is he . . .” I couldn’t find the right word to convey my suspicions without actually saying I suspected him.

  “He’s a good man. That much I know,” she said as she put the last pin in the top. “Do you want to quilt this tonight?”

  I shook my head. “Barney will be worried if we don’t get home.”

  Eleanor folded up the quilt and put it in her office. “We can work on it again when it’s slow,” she said.

  I walked over and wrapped my arms around her. “Don’t get too caught up in him,” I said. “Just in case.”

  She hugged me. “I won’t, but you have to do me a favor too.”

  I looked into her beautiful brown eyes. “Name it.”

  “Don’t keep finding reasons to push love away.”

  She kissed my cheek and headed out of the shop. I stood for a moment, confused. I wasn’t pushing love away. At least I didn’t think so. But as I followed behind her, I wondered if she knew something about me that I didn’t.

  CHAPTER 35

  I walked over to the police station, which seemed quiet even for a cold January night. If Eleanor was right and I was looking for reasons to push love away, then that would stop now.

  Greg was supposed to be manning the phones in the reception area, but instead he was furiously writing on a legal pad. When he saw me, he quickly put the pad under his desk.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Not a thing,” he answered.

  “Well that’s good news in the police business.” I smiled.

  “I guess. Though I wish we had something exciting to do.”

  “You have the investigation.”

  He grunted. I’d forgotten that he’d been frozen out because of the watch fiasco, but it wasn’t a subject I wanted to get into.

  “Jesse in?” I asked.

  “His office.”

  I walked several steps before I took a quick peek back. Greg had the notepad out again and was hunched over it, writing.

  I moved toward Jesse’s office and saw that the door was slightly open. For a moment I stood outside and against the wall. I looked in as Jesse worked at his desk, studying papers as if he couldn’t understand them. He had that stern, strong frown he’d worn when we first met. He was then, and now, so smart and so focused that I smiled just looking at him.

  As he studied the papers his glasses slipped down his nose, and he reached up to push them back. Silly as it sounds, it made my heart leap. I’d always liked his laid-back professorial personality, but when I let myself, I realized I loved the way he was both capable cop and shy geek. I felt safe with him, and I knew I could be myself with him.

  Things had been a little tentative, but that was only because of one dead body in the river, another on my back porch, and my grandmother’s romance with a man who might be responsible for both. As soon as this murder investigation was behind us, I knew we could finally have the relationship we deserved.

  I watched as he removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. I couldn’t wait a moment longer to talk to him, so I pushed the door open and walked inside.

  “Hi,” I said. “I know you’re working, but I wanted to come by and see you.”

  Jesse looked up at me blankly.

  I walked over to his desk and touched his shoulder. He moved away.

  “Am I interrupting something?” I asked. “If I am . . .”

  “No.”

  “Oh good.” I smiled but I felt a little unsure. Still, I decided to press on. Jesse, I knew, was tired and overworked. He needed the break I could bring him. “I was hoping you were having a dull evening and we could hang out.”

  “I’ve got work,” he said.

  “Well take a break,” I teased. I leaned down and kissed him, but he didn’t kiss back.

  I straightened up. “If you’d rather I leave . . .”

  I waited, but Jesse didn’t answer. I took a step toward the door. Jesse put his glasses back on and looked at me as if we had never met.

  “Sit down.”

  His voice was flat, unemotional, all business. And it made me angry. Whatever was going on with him, he didn’t have to take it out on me. I was about to tell him that, but I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t in the mood to listen.

  “What is it?” I said as I sat in the chair across from him.

  He leaned back and looked at me. “The results on the fingerprints came back this afternoon.”

  “What fingerprints?”

  “The fingerprints from Sandra’s apartment.”

  I could feel the blood drain from my face. Jesse was watching me closely, and I was trying hard to seem interested but detached, as if the results had nothing to do with me. But I was actually searching my brain, replaying my little foray into Sandra’s apartment. I didn’t wear gloves; that much I remembered. But what had I touched? What was there to touch?

  Then it hit me. The wallet. I had held it, opened it, searched through it. Of course he’d checked it for fingerprints. But I could say that Sandra had dropped it during class and I picked it up, looked through it for identification, and handed it back to her. Easy. He couldn’t prove otherwise.

  I tried to breathe again.

  “So what did you find?” I asked as casually as my rapidly beating heart would allow.

  “You.” Jesse leaned back in his chair. It seemed as if he were trying to get as far from me as possible. “I found your prints on the windowsill and on several kitchen cabinets.”

  “How can you know that?” I stammered.

  “I have them on file from the last time you interfered in a police investigation, remember?”

  I remembered. “I knew Sandra,” I said weakly.

  “Not that well. Not well enough to be in her apartment, unless you would like to change your story.”

  “My story?”

  “What you told me the night she was murdered.”

  “Yes, that’s what I told my boyfriend. I wasn’t aware that you were questioning me as the chief of police.”

  Jesse frowned. “Why were you in her apartment?”

  “I’m not a suspect.”

  He sat up again and looked straight at me. “Yes, you are.”

  “You think I killed Sandra?”

  “No.” It was clear that he was getting angry but he was trying his best to keep it under control. “You are a suspect in a breaking and entering at the apartment of a murder victim.”

  His eyes never moved from mine but finally I couldn’t stand his distance. My voice turned flat and I stared him down.

  “Are you going to charge me?” I asked.

  He slammed his fist on his desk and I jumped in my seat. “How could you do this? Are you an idiot?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I raised my voice, the best defen
se being a desperate offense.

  “I assume you were playing detective even though I’d asked you not to.”

  I lowered my eyes. What was there to say? He had me and he knew it.

  “Yes,” I said quietly.

  Jesse’s face went red and he seemed ready to kill me. “Let’s get back to my question. What were you doing in Sandra’s apartment?”

  I looked at him, hoping for some understanding. “I wanted to see if there was anything that tied her to Lily.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing.” I took a deep breath. There was no point in lying any more. “I did find one thing. I found a photograph that was similar to the one that Susanne’s nephew described.”

  “You found?” he asked. “Is it the photo that Greg said he found in the wallet after it was in evidence?”

  I nodded. Jesse tapped his fingers on the desk and said nothing, though it looked as if he might explode at any moment. I waited for him to calm down. Actually, I hoped he would calm down, but it didn’t seem likely anytime soon.

  “I know you’re mad,” I finally said.

  He clenched his jaw.

  “And I was wrong,” I said. “I knew that even at the time.”

  “Good for you.”

  “But she was found dead a few feet from my house. The main suspect is my grandmother’s boyfriend. I needed to know.”

  “And I told you I would find out.”

  “Of course you will, but—”

  “You don’t belong in this investigation,” he said.

  “Neither does Powell, but for some reason you’re letting him help.” Jesse’s face went white. I’d gone too far.

  He waved his hand as if to dismiss me. “I’m not going to charge you,” he finally said. “You should go home.”

  I would have been relieved but there was a coldness in his voice that frightened me more than facing arrest.

  “Let’s not let this ruin things between us,” I said quickly, softening my voice to that of a girlfriend trying to end a lovers’ quarrel.

  “Go home, Nell.”

  “I was wrong. I know I was wrong. But this is ridiculous. What we have—”

  “We don’t have anything. Not anymore.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until we talk about this,” I said. Knowing that we were past the criminal activity and on to the relationship, I felt on more solid ground.

  But Jesse didn’t see it my way. He stood up and took my arm, pulling me from the chair.

  “Go home,” he said in a voice full of contempt.

  He walked me over to his office door and led me out. Then he closed the door behind me.

  I stood there, trying to think of the words that would change his mind. I could hear him walk back to his desk and get on the phone. I couldn’t hear who he was talking to or what it was about. As I pushed my ear against the door, I realized that I was doing exactly what had angered him in the first place—sticking my nose in where it didn’t belong.

  I walked past Greg, still writing on his legal pad, and out of the police station. The wind had picked up and it slapped me across the face. I thought about going back to the quilt shop and working on my Irish chain in the hopes of recapturing some of the peace I’d felt just an hour before, but I didn’t have the focus for it.

  Instead I walked in circles around town, looking at the closed shops and into the window of Moran’s Bar. There were plenty of people inside enjoying the evening, but that just depressed me.

  Instead I found myself heading toward the river, toward the very spot where Jesse had dragged Lily’s body out of the water. Dead leaves and wet snow had reclaimed the area and there was no sign left of the tragedy that had happened there. But for me there was a new tragedy. I sat down on the cold, wet ground and let go of the emotion I’d been holding inside.

  I cried for so long that I thought I would never stop, but eventually I didn’t have any tears left inside me—just a hollow pain and the realization that I had betrayed Jesse’s trust. I knew he felt that if I’d respected him I would have left the investigation to him. Somehow I had belittled his abilities when that was the last thing I’d ever intended.

  But slowly the thought crept in my head—if he respected me, he would know that I couldn’t just step over a dead body and leave it for others to fix. I didn’t need or want to stand behind some man who would protect me from danger. I wanted to protect myself. If Jesse was looking for some damsel-in-distress type then he didn’t really want me.

  I stood up, suddenly aware of how cold it was. I wiped the tears from my face and started back toward the road.

  I had made a mistake when I broke into Sandra’s apartment. Jesse was right about that. But the mistake was not wearing gloves.

  Next time I wouldn’t be that stupid.

  CHAPTER 36

  I walked into class on Thursday determined to walk out with answers. I’d lain low for the last few days, still stung by my fight with Jesse. But now, with Kennette and Oliver about to be in the same room, I was back on the investigation.

  “There’s no still life,” Kennette whispered to me as she got out her charcoal.

  I looked down at the empty table where usually there was a display of fruit, pastries, bottles, or something that we could draw.

  “Maybe he’s bringing it with him,” I whispered back. But just what “it” was, I didn’t know.

  “Good morning, class.” Oliver walked in smiling. “I have a bit of a surprise for you today. You’ve all been doing such terrific work that I thought we would forgo doing a still life today and try something different. It’s a bit more complex, but all I ask is that you take your time, focus your attention, and let yourselves find the emotion in the object.”

  The entire class stood at attention, confused and excited. Oliver was good at creating drama even when he wasn’t painting. He pointed to the door and all eyes turned. In walked a young woman wearing a bathrobe. He directed her to the table and helped her as she climbed onto it.

  It was clear that the “object” he wanted us to paint was a nude model. As we stood at our easels, the woman took off her robe and posed, one foot slightly turned and in front of the other, her hands laced behind her back. I stood with my charcoal in my hand, unable to decide where to start.

  “Just draw boxes.” Oliver was behind me and I found myself suddenly embarrassed that we were both looking at a nude woman.

  “Boxes?” I asked.

  Oliver lifted a ruler from my easel and held it in front of him. He squinted and seemed to be studying the woman.

  “Look at the proportions and draw the figure as a group of boxes that correspond to the pose. Once you have the proportions correct, it will be easier to draw the lines and shapes.” He handed me the ruler.

  I nodded and held the ruler up as he had. But instead of figuring out the proportions of the model, I was trying to watch Oliver as he spoke with Kennette. Though it was difficult to see without being obvious, I could hear what they were saying just behind my easel.

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” Kennette said to Oliver.

  “You are one of my most talented students. Just take it one step at a time.”

  “But she’s naked,” Kennette said. “I know it’s stupid . . .”

  “You have seen a naked woman before.” His voice seemed tired. “And in this case she is merely a model. Nothing more. She is not a nude woman. She is not even a person. She is a series of curves and shadows; a way for you to express your emotions. I have every confidence that you will be able to do that.”

  Oliver moved on and I turned and smiled at Kennette, who smiled shyly back. It was despicable of me, but I realized that Kennette’s nervousness about the model was the perfect opening to ask her about the painting in Oliver’s house.

  That would have to wait, though. I needed to focus on drawing the model and at least have something to show at the end of the class. I held up my ruler and squinted as Oliver had instructed. I determined the proportions o
f the head, the torso, the arms, and the legs. I lightly drew my boxes and then reshaped them to form the curves of the female form. I found myself staring at her and seeing only shadows and lines.

  Halfway through the class, I realized that I was seeing the model exactly as Oliver described. To an artist, she wasn’t a woman: She was an object.

  But I guess a killer would feel the same way.

  As soon as class ended, Oliver disappeared. I hadn’t yet decided who I would speak to first, or what I might say, but since I was left with only Kennette, I turned to her drawing. As always, it was an amazing work—simple yet emotional.

  “You nailed it,” I exclaimed.

  Kennette frowned. “I felt a little silly drawing a nude woman with Oliver standing there.”

  “Really? Drawing nudes is an important part of learning basic art skills.”

  “I know. I guess I’m just being silly.”

  “Besides, Oliver used hundreds of models in his work. If he weren’t dating my grandmother, I’d pose for him. Wouldn’t you?”

  Her eyes widened. “God, no. I can’t even imagine it.” She rolled up her drawing and stuck it in her bag.

  “I guess it would be weird,” I said, trying to think of a new direction to take the conversation. “After all, we’ve become friends with him.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “And I know you like him,” I said.

  “Who doesn’t? It’s not like he’s just any old artist. He’s famous. He’s won awards. He even got an LSA Fellowship.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get to the shop. You don’t look ready to go, so I’m going to grab the bus. Okay?”

  Without waiting for my answer, she grabbed her bag and sprinted from the room. I followed close behind but lost her in the parking lot. Since there was now no point in hurrying to the shop, I went back into the school and looked for Oliver.