For a Good Time, Call

by Anne Tenino

  She was reading the paper—not the Bluewater Bay Beacon, the Seattle Times. As he came to stand next to her, the only noise was the rustle of pages turning and the faint beat of his pulse in his ears. After a few moments, when she looked up questioningly, he unfolded the bundle and offered it to her.

  She recoiled. “What’s that old thing, and why did you bring it into my house?”

  “This was in the garage.” Not quite an answer, but by now she’d have figured out what it was. It was cleaner than when he’d first found it—Nate had done a hell of a job on it—and the shape was obvious. When she turned her gaze on him, he met it steadily, ready to own up to his wrongs. It had been years since he’d done anything like this—waited to be disciplined. Actually, he doubted he ever had. His memories were all about hiding from punishment, not meeting it head-on.

  Grandma refocused on the knife, leaning closer to where it rested in his palms.

  “I found it that night I found the rat’s nest,” he offered after a minute of her silence.

  “That was almost two weeks ago.” She tilted her head, studying him. “You look like you’re expecting me to take you out behind the woodshed for a whuppin’.”

  When she pushed out the chair next to her, he sat, continuing his confession. She needed to know the full extent of what he’d done. “A, um, friend of mine helped me investigate it a little. We found some interesting things about the knife when he started researching it.”

  “Why would you need to investigate it if you found it here?”

  Of course, she assumed what he had. What anyone would—that it belonged to an ancestor of theirs. In answer, he laid it on the table between them.

  She squinted at him, then it, unwrapping the knife further. An audible breath escaped her as she touched it gingerly, running her fingertip over the engraved initials. “This didn’t belong to any Larson. Whatever it is you know, you’d best tell me.”

  She’d already heard about Adeline being found over the body—every Larson had—but she wasn't aware of the other details that had led him and Nate (and Shannon) to a very different conclusion about who had murdered Fennimore. Grimacing, he filled her in. On how Edgar Gaines Monteith was the sheriff and apparently a poker buddy of Fennimore’s, and how much anti-Chinese sentiment existed at the time. “And, on top of all that, Fennimore’s widow marries Monteith?” Grandma just stared at him, so he finished up with, “We can’t prove anything, but it’s an awful lot of coincidences.”

  Gape-mouthed, she didn’t say anything for long seconds. “Oh my,” she finally whispered. “Kirk won’t be happy about this at all. It’ll sully the Larson name . . .”

  That was his cue to really own up. “Shannon Carr—she used to be Shannon Schumer, remember?” At Grandma’s nod he went on. “She’s writing a story about it for the paper. A local color sort of piece, because she’s sick of writing about Wolf’s Landing.”

  Oh God, Grandma had gone pale. Seth put a hand under her elbow, as if he could keep her from toppling over, even though they were sitting down. “Maybe, um.” He licked his lip quickly. “Maybe I can call Shannon and we can ask her not to run the story?”

  “No,” Grandma said before he’d finished speaking. Her voice became stronger as she went on. “No. It’s no good hiding the truth. In fact, it might be time to force some truth on your uncle.” Taking a deep breath, she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “It could help us too. That’s the only way I’m getting out of this house. If he thinks it’s a liability rather than an asset.”

  Well, yeah. That’s what he’d been hoping, but it was secondary to the other stuff, now. “Grandma, there’s more.”

  “More?” She reared back in her seat.

  “Adeline, the maid? She’d had a baby a couple of months before the murder, and we kind of think . . .” Wait, why exactly did they think that Fennimore had to be the father? Maybe Adeline had been fired because she was pregnant, but that didn’t mean it was his baby.

  Before he could voice any of that, Grandma had gone white as a sheet and stood up. “Follow me.” Her voice was barely louder than the scuff of her slippers on the hardwood.

  She took him up to the second floor, all the way at the other end of the house, to what had been Grandpa’s den. It had also purportedly been Fennimore’s, as had the desk dominating the room. Seth had never really thought about it before, but as he walked through the doorway, he realized in a prickling rush that this was the room where his great-great-grandfather had been stabbed to death.

  Grandma didn’t seem affected by that. Walking around to the back of the desk, she bent over and wrestled the bottom drawer open. When she straightened up again, she was holding a familiar-looking archival storage box. It was where they kept all the most important historical documents. Like the original deed to this land, and the certificate from a long-ago mayor designating Fennimore as an official Honored Citizen.

  A chill ran up Seth’s spine, and his hair—already standing on end—tried to levitate off his scalp. “Grandma?”

  She shook her head, lips compressed while she set down the box and dug through it, using a lot less care with the yellowed documents than he’d come to expect. Near the bottom of the stack she stopped, squinting at something for long seconds before ripping it from under the other papers and holding it out toward Seth.

  Her hands trembled, making the paper crinkle ever so slightly as he stared at it. Grandma shook it deliberately when he didn’t take it right away.

  Damn it. He had a feeling Grandma knew whether Fennimore had been the father.

  And he was right. It was a document that read Birth Return at the top. What looked like a very old, very official one, most of the fields filled in by hand in that elegant penmanship everyone had used a century ago.

  The baby on the record was named Finnimore Larson.

  “It’s not spelled the same way,” he said stupidly. “And this is from King County.” The doctor—whose name was the only illegible thing on the record—listed the city of birth as Seattle. Fennimore had been born on the East Coast, much, much earlier than the date on this document: February 13, 1903. The same year Fennimore had been murdered. Only a couple of months before then.

  So, not Fennimore’s birth certificate for certain, then. As if he didn’t know whose it was. Some things jumped out at him immediately—the baby was labeled as yellow in the Color field, and the line following Father’s Name was blank. So was the Legitimate or Illegitimate field. Squinting, he focused enough to find the information he needed.

  And yes, there—the mother’s name was Hsiang Ah.

  Paper crinkled, and he immediately let go of the birth record, which he’d inadvertently clenched. He watched as it fluttered down onto the desk. “That was her name—Adeline’s—her Chinese name. It was in the Beacon. It’s got to be his baby too.” He doubted she’d name the kid after Fennimore for any other reason. Had she done it to force him to acknowledge it?

  “I hope so.” Grandma gripped the edge of the desk, her knuckles going white. “Because if it’s not that baby’s birth record, there might have been more than one of Fennimore’s bastards running around.”

  Grandma said “bastard.” Realizing this was a bigger shock for his grandmother than him, Seth hurried around to her. The antique chair squealed as he pulled it out, then gave another high-pitched protest as he sat her in it.

  Peering up at him, her eyes seemed huge, very dark against the paleness of her face. “We’ve never known exactly whose it was, but your grandfather found a secret compartment before he had the desk refinished, and that was in it. This always seemed like the most likely possibility. An illegitimate child.”

  “But . . .” He shook his head. “How would he even have gotten it?”

  She snorted an unamused laugh. “I think we have plenty of examples to show us that Fennimore wasn’t above throwing his money around to get what he wanted.” She gasped before adding what had apparently just occurred to her. “Or Adeline brought it to him
that night . . . that could be how she became their patsy. Oh, I’ve always said that man was a jackass.” She smacked the desk with the palm of her hand, frowning angrily now. “This would be just like him, to hide the evidence of his own child. And to force himself on that poor girl! Then they hung her.” Grandma’s eyes were accusatory, as if he’d had something to do with it.

  “We don’t know that he forced himself on her.” God, he hoped not. He might have to change his name if they ever found out that was true. He was already considering losing his breakfast at the thought.

  “No, we don’t, I suppose.” She didn’t sound convinced, and her anger almost visibly bled out of her all at once, as she slumped in her seat. “Seth, it’s not right for me to tell you this, but . . . the Larson men have a history of philandering.”

  Seth gulped, the sound loud in the room. Did she— Was she saying that—

  “Not your father,” she said quickly. “But his father.” A single tear fell from Grandma’s eye, and as she wiped at her cheek, everything about her went back to the grandmother he was familiar with. She sat up straight and firmed her chin, continuing in a much stronger voice, one tinged with anger. “And his father, and so on. Generations. The whole damn town talked about it.”

  “I’m sorry,” he offered, as if he could speak for the past Larson men by proxy. God, poor Grandma. There didn’t seem to be a lot more to say, so they simply looked at each other, probably wearing identical frowns. Hers certainly reminded him of looking into the mirror.

  Slowly, Grandma’s color returned, and her spine got even straighter. She put the birth certificate back in the box, laying it right on top, before covering it. Then she stood and dusted off her hands on her lavender jogging pants. “Well.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m not going to hide this. I won’t be a party to it. You tell Shannon to run that story.” With that, she marched out of the room, nose in the air.

  The next couple of days, Seth went everywhere and did everything he should—worked at Ma Cougar’s and did his chores around Sentinel House—and the entire time, he felt as if he were holding his breath. Waiting. Whether it was for Shannon’s piece or to see Nate again, he wasn’t sure.

  In any case, his schedule conflicted with Nate’s, so he had to settle for a phone call.

  He hadn’t wanted to tell Nate any of his new, nauseating discoveries, but he’d ended up spilling it all once he heard Nate’s voice, though. Not only the news of the birth record and the Larson predilection for infidelity, but the possibility that Adeline had been coerced into sleeping with Fennimore.

  “Shit,” Nate muttered.

  “Why didn’t I think of that before?” Seth’s voice sounded quavery in his own ears. Another similarity between him and Grandma.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Not really. This is downright sordid. I almost wish I’d never found that fucking knife.”

  “Hey.” Nate’s tone was gentle. “Discovering unexpected or unpleasant things about your family is a shock. Believe me, I get that. But you’re not Fennimore. Your reaction makes that clear, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose.”

  “No supposing about it—you want justice for Adeline, right? Or at least vindication. If you’d known about the possible rape beforehand, would you have wanted to suppress the truth? Left her on record as Fennimore’s murderer?”

  Seth nearly choked. “Oh my God, no.”

  “Like I said, babe. You didn’t inherit the douche bag gene. You’re a good guy.” Nate must have covered his phone with his hand then, because his voice was muffled for a moment. “Sorry. I’ve got to get back to the set. You gonna be all right?”

  Babe? “Sure, eventually.” Was Nate one of those guys who called all his friends pet names? Seth wouldn’t have guessed that. “I mean, I don’t feel like I can’t go on or anything. I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  He did feel better after confessing to Nate, even though nothing was solved. Maybe he’d just needed to confide the whole mess in someone he trusted.

  Plus, he called me “babe.”

  Nate wasn’t alone in the bed.

  “Nara?” He reached for her, and she flipped her long ebony hair, and it was short, the skin no longer ivory but brown. Jorge. But Jorge couldn’t be there. He’d walked out of Nate’s life and left him alone. But here he was again, his back broad, his hips narrow, but no scar on his back where the doctors had fused his vertebrae. Before the accident, when he’d still loved Nate. Jorge rolled onto his back, and Nate’s breath stalled. He’d always been so beautiful, although more so when he was in motion, attacking a performance with the passion Nate had always found irresistible. God, I haven’t touched skin in so long.

  But when Nate reached out and placed a trembling hand on Jorge’s stomach, the skin under his fingers was paler than Jorge’s, paler than his own. Lightly tanned, underlaid with a rosy flush and furred with soft blond hair.

  What?

  Nate snatched his hand away when a warning bell sounded, and Seth—Seth?—said, “You can’t have everything your own way. What about my needs?”

  The bell got louder, more insistent, and Nate woke up to his cell phone nearly vibrating off his nightstand, his father’s picture illuminated on the screen. He grabbed it.

  “H’lo?”

  “Sounds like I woke you. Sorry, son.”

  Even after fourteen years, Nate couldn’t help the warmth that spread through his chest when his father called him “son.” He suspected his dad had the same feeling, because in any conversation, he was bound to drop the S-word at least twice, which didn’t bother Nate a bit.

  “No worries, Dad. I need to— Holy crap, look at the time. I’ll be late for work if I don’t get moving.”

  “Sorry, I’ll call later.”

  “No, it’s okay. We can talk while I get ready.” Nate kicked the tangled sheets away from his legs and swung around to sit at the edge of the bed. Tarkus, curled on the oversized doggy bed in the corner, immediately perked his ears, although he didn’t get up—by this time, he knew the morning routine as well as Nate did. “Putting you on speaker.” He shivered his way to the dresser. Christ, it was getting cold in the mornings. “How’s retirement? You still hustling your unsuspecting friends on the golf course?”

  “Do you realize how excruciatingly tedious golf can be when it’s the only thing you’re allowed to do? I’m on a self-imposed hiatus until I can stand to look at the damn clubs again.”

  Nate dragged a pair of sweatpants on over his boxer briefs and fought his way into an old Henley so he wouldn’t freeze his butt off while he fed Tarkus. “Dad, remember what the doctor said. Exercise, but not too much of it.”

  “That quack,” he grumbled. “He won’t even let me walk the course. I have to ride in a damn cart.”

  “That’s because you had a heart attack.” He trotted into the living room, where it was even colder. No point firing up the wood stove or the fireplace though—not when he had to leave in under thirty minutes. He opened the door to let Tarkus bound outside, checking automatically to make sure the gate was latched. “Follow orders, okay? I’d like to have you around for a while longer.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Boredom’s likely to kill me before another attack.”

  He filled the coffee maker reservoir with water. “Hey, you’re not going to believe this, but I’m doing some work with the local community theater company.”

  “You took a job in live theater? I thought you said you’d never—”

  “Not a job. Just a consult. Helping out a friend with some SFX for his Frankenstein production.”

  “A friend?” His father’s voice rose on the word. “A special friend?”

  “For God’s sake, Dad, I’m not thirteen.” No, they hadn’t even known each other then, thanks to his mother’s secrets and lies. “It’s Levi Pritchard. I owe him this job, so it’s the least I could do.”

  “Oh.” His sigh was audible even
over the noise of the coffee grinder. “When’s the production?”

  “Final dress is tonight. They open tomorrow, then run for three weekends.”

  “Wish I could come up and catch the show. I’d like to see your work.”

  Nate laughed. “As much as I’d like to see you, we’re not talking red-carpet material here. Just a community theater group, but they get some attention from the Seattle papers because of Levi’s status, so it’s all good.”

  “I can’t help but think that if you’ve resorted to stage work, you must be getting tired of the hinterlands. Ready to come back to Hollywood? There are a lot of interesting projects coming up, and Levi’s not the only one with clout. My contacts haven’t completely dried up. I’m sure there’s someone . . .”

  Nate finished his father’s comment in his head. Someone you didn’t completely fuck up your professional relationship with. Not likely. And when the bottom line was at risk, Hollywood brass didn’t give out second chances.

  “Nice try, Dad, but the job is going great, and the show has legs like you wouldn’t believe. Besides, I like the town. It’s got its own pretty crazy history, you know? Maybe not as out there as Hollywood, but—”

  “But you’re finding plenty to keep you interested.”

  “Yeah.” He thought of Seth, brow furrowed, as he studied the evidence of Adeline’s fate on Nate’s computer; or later, as he ran down the beach, whooping like a loon, while Tarkus raced away from him with the Frisbee in his jaws. “Yeah, I am.”

  “Nate? Are you— That is, I haven’t heard that tone in your voice since before Jorge got hurt. Have you . . . have you met someone?”

  “Why would you jump to that conclusion?”

  His father sighed. “Can’t blame me for hoping, son. I don’t like to think about you being alone.”

  Nate paused after setting Tarkus’s food bowl on the floor. Was he ready to admit that he might have met someone? He wasn’t entirely sure himself. But his dad sounded so down. The least Nate could do—