by Terri Thayer
Damn. Drop-in visits were a fact of life, living in this town so close to her parents. Both were guilty of it, although so far they had avoided running into each other at her place. They never crossed paths as long as Bonnie stuck to her usual habit of stopping in late at night on her way home from her job as chef in the country club kitchen.
April opened the door, putting on a too-bright smile. She knew her mother would see it for what it was, false hospitality.
“We saw the lights on,” Clive said.
Nice try. The barn lights weren’t visible from the road.
He misread her body language. He started to step over the threshold, but Bonnie laid an arm across his chest.
Bonnie stayed outside. “We won’t stay. These chicken breasts were going to go to waste. I thought maybe you could use them. Freeze them and make soup.”
April couldn’t remember the last time she had made soup, but she knew better than to fight with her mother. “Come in,” she said. A fog of gnats swarmed around the light fixture.
“How was your day, luv?” Clive asked. As usual, he was grinning from ear to ear. He was always happiest around Bonnie.
April could see his bike in the back of Bonnie’s car. He must have ridden over to meet her at work. He hated being home alone. April always pictured him standing in the front window of her mother’s ranch house, staring mournfully at every car that drove by, disappointed each time it wasn’t her. Many nights he went to the club at quitting time.
From the glow in his eyes, April suspected he had spent the evening at the bar.
Bonnie handed her a foil-covered dish. April caught an undercurrent from Clive. He was almost giddy, more than his usual self. He was rocking back and forth on his heels with a self-satisfied expression on his face. He looked like a dam about to burst.
April looked from her mother to her boyfriend and back again.
“What?” April asked.
Clive’s eyebrows were dancing as though they’d come alive as two Disney caterpillars on his forehead. April worried that they might break into song next.
Bonnie jerked Clive back as he took a step closer. “Honey, she’s not in the mood for company.”
Clive made a strangled sound as he swallowed the words that had begun to come out.
“Did you find Pedro? He never did come to work,” Bonnie said.
April frowned. She’d thought the whole world would know about Xenia by now.
Bonnie saw the pain in April’s eyes. She put a hand out and smoothed back her daughter’s hair, hooking it behind her ear.
“What’s wrong?” Bonnie said. “Did something happen to Pedro?”
April could feel her mother’s soft touch, but her body refused to unwind. She swallowed hard. “We were looking for him because his wife was found dead.”
Bonnie’s eyes darkened. Clive let out an audible sigh as his body went still. April was simply glad he’d finally stopped fidgeting.
“Pedro? The cook?” he asked.
April nodded and said, “Mitch and I found Xenia in the maze. Dead. Then we went looking for Pedro. We found him at the Homes for Hope house. Someone had spray-painted the siding with ‘Wetback, go home.’ He was trying to clean it off. The people in this town, I swear . . .”
Bonnie said, “Slow down, honey. Folks around here have always stuck to their own kind. You can’t change them.”
“Just because that’s the way it’s always been doesn’t make it right,” April said.
Her mother’s eyes flashed. “What happened to Pedro?”
April said, “He’s being questioned by the police.”
“Why?” Bonnie blurted out. “Pedro would never have hurt his wife. He talked about her all the time.”
Clive nodded. He found Bonnie’s hand and brought it up to his mouth and kissed her palm gently. He was a little guy with a big heart.
Bonnie took April by the shoulders and searched her daughter’s face. It wasn’t the usual surface scrutiny; she was looking straight into April’s soul. April felt the love behind it and drank it in.
“Oh, honey, are you okay?” Bonnie asked.
“I just need to sleep.”
Bonnie relaxed a notch. “You go up to bed.”
April felt the events of the day bear down on her like a weight. “Okay.”
Bonnie seemed reluctant to leave. “Want me to tuck you in?”
April laughed. “Not really. You guys go on home. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Don’t forget dinner’s on Tuesday this week,” Clive said.
April give him a mocking thumbs-up. A weekly dinner with her mother and Clive was mandatory, and even if they changed the day once in a while, there was no way April was allowed to miss it.
Clive smiled and guided Bonnie out the door. April could hear him murmuring, the words incoherent, his voice low and soothing as he opened the car door for her.
April felt a pang of loneliness. Right about now, it would be nice to have someone whispering in her ear.
CHAPTER 9
April was up early the next day. The fact of Xenia’s death hung on her like a wet blanket, but she had work to do. She had to carve several more stamps for her portfolio for Stamping Sisters and create a scene using all of the stamps. She wanted to redo the layered Golden Gate Bridge stamp. She wasn’t happy with the way the cables had come out.
She fought the urge to call Mitch. He’d call as soon as he knew anything. She poured herself a cup of green tea and sorted through the sketches, trying to concentrate on the phrases she’d come up with to describe her projects.
She needed this gig. It would give her another source of income. Despite the fact that her expenses were low here, money was still tight. There were days when her father had no work for her and she had to take a day off with no pay. And she’d like to be able to give her father and Vince rent for the barn she was living in. They’d been more than generous letting her live here for free, but she knew the rent money would be helpful to them.
She grabbed her X-Acto knife and erasers and sat down to work.
Fifteen minutes later, she knew it was no use. Her mind drifted back time and again to the sight of Xenia’s vacant visage. From there, the graffiti on the house took over, the ugly scrawl filling her mind. She stood, cracking her back and twisting, hoping activity would jiggle her mind back to the work at hand. She jogged in place, trying to outrun her worried thoughts.
The slur on the siding disturbed her. She’d been called a few names in her senior year of high school, after Ed had told the family he was gay. Someone had broken into her locker and written “Fag Hag” on her notebook and book covers. She knew from experience that words could, and did, hurt.
She’d like to think that the graffiti might galvanize the right people, the ones who were not threatened by the prospect of low-income homeowners living in their midst. Who understood the value of reaching down and giving a hand to those in need. But she knew it might only add fuel to the flames that the so-called Border Patrol, the anti-immigration folks, were constantly fanning with their righteous indignation and incendiary double-talk.
For the past several years, the local government in Lynwood, the city on the hill five miles up the road, had been blaming an influx of illegals for all their woes—crime, unemployment and deteriorating neighborhoods. As far as April remembered, those problems had always existed, even before Mexican-Americans started settling there rather than merely migrating through.
But the city had passed an anti-immigration bill, one that put landlords and business owners on the front line of the war against illegals. The law violated so many human rights that it was later shot down by the Supreme Court. She’d thought that the vitriol had died down. Seemed as though the bad blood was getting stirred up again.
April’s cell rang about four. It was Mitch.
“How’s it going over there?” he asked.
“How’s Pedro?” April asked.
Mitch’s voice was garbled, and she pictured him
running his hand over his face. She asked him to start over.
He sighed and repeated himself. “He’s being held for questioning in Wilkes-Barre. They’re waiting for the coroner’s call on the cause of death before they indict. I’m hoping Deana finds something other than murder.”
April said, “And their kids?”
“Haven’t you heard? Clive and Bonnie took them to her place for the day.”
“I didn’t hear.” She would have if she’d called her mother, but she hadn’t done that, either.
“Xenia’s sister’s in no shape to watch them.”
Mitch blew out a breath. April wondered if he was trying not to cry. “Pedro’s having a very tough time. The fact that he can’t see his children, now, when they need him the most, is really getting to him. Bonnie and Clive planned a busy day to distract them.”
“I’ll go over there later and see if I can do anything,” April said. “Did Pedro say where he was yesterday?” she asked. “Does he have an alibi?”
Mitch had settled back down, the flare of temper gone. Only the frustration remained in his voice. “Not a good one. Xenia and her sister, Lila, and the kids left the house around ten. He worked all day Saturday on the rental house, painting and getting it in shape for the landlord. Alone.”
“Where did Xenia and the kids go?”
“Lila said they went to all the Pumpkin Express stops. Xenia had something to give to Mitch so they saved the maze for last. But they split up before they got there, at about two, because Xenia had an appointment. She left and was supposed to meet up with them later—either at the maze or at Perkins for dinner. Lila looked for her in the maze, but when she didn’t see her, she assumed Xenia had been delayed and wouldn’t meet then until dinner. She was still waiting for Xenia at Perkins when the cops found her and told her her sister was dead.”
“Do you remember seeing the A.maz.ing Maze stamp on Xenia’s hand?” April asked. She couldn’t remember.
Mitch didn’t reply, and she wondered whether he was just thinking or if had tuned her out completely.
She continued. “If Xenia went through the regular entrance, she’d have had a stamp on her hand, but I don’t remember seeing her hand.”
Mitch said slowly, “If she was dumped there, she wouldn’t have a stamp. But if she was alive, and just dropped dead, she’d have a stamp.”
“Right.” Or if someone had followed her into the maze to kill her. April shuddered at the idea that she might have stamped the hand of a murderer.
April shook it off. They didn’t know the cause of death yet. It could be that Xenia had a weak heart or an aneurysm.
“I’ve got to know what happened to her, April.”
“I know. Me, too.”
This wasn’t just about Mitch’s Homes for Hope project. This was personal. She could hear the strain in his voice, and she wanted to erase the wrinkle she knew was growing between his eyes. She hated to see him hurting like this.
She would do whatever she could to find out what happened to Xenia.
“Can I come over tonight?” Mitch said quietly.
April’s heart thudded in her chest. “Everyone’s coming here. I’ve got stamping tonight. How about I call you when they leave? Will that be too late?”
“I’ll wait up,” he said.
CHAPTER 10
April went out to get Farmer’s iced tea and snacks for the stamping group. All the stampers were watching their weight, but it was too hot to think low fat. Besides, after the weekend they’d had, a little indulgence was in order.
She drove by her dad’s to borrow floor fans. Ed was sitting on the porch of the Sears-Roebuck kit house that he and Vince were rehabbing. The only thing finished was their bedroom. Every other room had been gutted down to the lath and plaster, but because of financial setbacks at their company, Retro Reproductions, nothing else had been completed.
The dust and disorder would have gotten to her by now. She couldn’t live with such chaos around her.
Ed patted the seat next to him on the red wooden porch swing. He stopped the motion with his boat shoe, and she sat down. He put an arm around her and hugged her tight. His tan knee-length shorts and T-shirt were covered in drywall dust, and she coughed, flapping her hand to disperse the dust motes his movement had raised.
“It’s about time you came over,” he said. “I’ve been worried sick ever since Vince came home last night. A dead body in the maze! When I heard that you were there, I about fainted.”
“It was a shock, but I’m okay.”
He patted her back several times. She sank into his hand. She relished her dad’s affection. Sometimes he pushed a little too hard and she had to shove him back into his own life, but mostly she was enjoying being near him. She’d always found it easier to accept her father’s demonstrations of love than her mother’s. Maybe it was because the affection seemed to soothe him, too.
Vince’s voice cut through the house, echoing in the near-empty rooms. He sounded peeved. The words were unintelligible.
April raised an eyebrow at Ed. “Who’s he talking to?”
“His father, who’s fairly deaf and extremely stubborn. The combination usually leads to a lot of yelling. That’s why I’m out here.”
Vince’s voice rose again. Ed’s eyes followed him as he moved past the windows in the living room.
April could see Ed was completely distracted by what was going on inside. “Is everything okay?”
Ed patted her hand absently. His jaw was tight. “His parents got a foreclosure notice in the mail. I’m sure once Vince goes down to the bank and pays the taxes, everything will be okay. They’re getting forgetful.”
April could tell Ed was more worried than his words might indicate. Ed’s default mode was worry, but in this case, a foreclosure notice was good reason to panic.
“Do you two put up the money for the taxes?” April asked.
Ed sat back in the seat, pushing the swing so it drifted back and forth. He tore his eyes away from the living room window. Vince’s voice grew softer, as though he’d moved into the kitchen at the back of the house.
“Gads, no. We don’t have that kind of dough. His parents have got plenty of money, they just sometimes neglect to write checks.”
Another outburst followed. Ed started. He listened. When no more noise was heard from inside, he relaxed.
“Lucky you,” Ed said. “Pretty soon, I’ll be that doddering and you’ll be paying my bills.”
“And changing your diapers,” April said. She dealt with Ed’s constant worrying by joking with him.
“At least your mother will have Clive to take care of her in her dotage,” Ed said.
“If Clive lives that long,” she said. April closed her eyes, lulled by the rocking seat and the warm breeze that was caressing them. The heat of the afternoon got to her. She nearly drifted off.
“Damn, damnation.” Vince’s voice startled April back to full consciousness. He appeared in the doorway, his broad face creased in worry.
“You okay?” Ed said.
“Are they all right?” April asked. She’d met Vince’s parents at Ed’s Fourth of July picnic. They were at least eighty, with matching white hair, although most of his dad’s fluttered over his eyebrows. April had enjoyed a verbal sparring match with him about minimum wage legislation. Vince’s mom had offered to come over and dig out her peonies in the fall. April had liked them both.
Vince’s mouth was a straight line. He said, “Too bad Mitch isn’t building houses for indigent old folks. My parents’ house was sold at auction for back taxes. They didn’t tell me until it was too late. Said Ferguson was supposed to help them. But they’re out on the street, as of tomorrow.”
“Ferguson? The Highland Fling guy?”
Ed said, “They’re part of his inner circle. He’s offered to help.”
“Where are they going to go?” April said. Her cheek twitched. She was living in Ed and Vince’s other house, the barn.
Vince and Ed exc
hanged glances. They’d already discussed their options. “They can’t live here. It’s in total upheaval,” Ed said.
Omigod. They needed their old place back. She tried to imagine where she would go. The barn had become her home in the last four months.
April took a deep breath. She knew what she had to do. “Give them the barn,” she said.
Vince sighed. “No, I can’t do that to you.” He turned up his lips, but the smile never quite reached his eyes.
She looked at her father. His forehead was knotted painfully again. Did he and Vince fight over her staying at their property? She couldn’t have that.
She put on a happy face. “It’ll be fine. I can bunk with Mom.”
“That’ll be great for her relationship with Clive,” Ed said dryly. “Mommy and me and April makes three,” he trilled.
April’s lips went dry. She’d been trying hard to make a home for herself here in Aldenville. She’d gotten used to waking up in the barn each morning. She’d miss the morning light that she sketched by. She’d been looking forward to seeing the cardinals feeding in the snow.
She felt her hard-earned secure life falling into chaos. But Ed and Vince came first.
“Seriously, Vince, you can move your mom and dad in tomorrow. I’ve never gotten around to getting more furniture. A couple suitcases, I’m good. I only need a few things.”
Her stamps. Her inks. Her drafting table.
Vince put a finger on her hand, tapping her gently, stopping her litany of things she could move. “Hold on. You’re forgetting one major problem. The only bedroom is in the loft,” Vince said. “My parents can’t climb that ladder.”
April’s shoulders came down, and she tried to keep relief from flooding her face, but her father saw it. He smiled at her.
Ed said, “The barn is an impractical place for an elderly couple. Why do you think we moved out?”
Vince chuckled and April felt the tension in her neck go away.