Mourning Gloria

by Susan Wittig Albert

  But Sandra was on the line. “Let’s keep the lessons at the same time, same place,” she said. “The orchestra meets on Thursday afternoons. And I’ll know more about the recital after I’ve worked with Caitie for a few weeks.” There was a deep warmth in her voice. “I’m delighted to have her, China. Brenda says she shows surprising promise for a first-year student.”

  “She’s certainly dedicated,” I said, as the strains of the Canon wafted down the stairs. “Actually, Sandra, I’m feeling a little guilty. I keep thinking I should have paid more attention to her progress. Been more on top of the situation.” Aren’t mothers supposed to be advocates for their children?

  “Nonsense,” Sandra replied briskly. “Caitlin’s opportunities will broaden out a bit now—it’ll be up to her to figure out how to handle them responsibly.” She paused. “You know, I often think that the real challenge for these talented youngsters isn’t the talent itself. It’s the discipline they need in order to develop the talent. You can’t give them that. They have to find it in themselves. And for parents, the challenge is finding the right level of involvement. There’s a difference between nurturing and pushing.” She chuckled. “To tell the truth, I’m glad you’re not one of the pushers.”

  “Thanks, Sandra,” I said. “That makes me feel better—a little, anyway. We’ll see you on Monday.” I hung up and started to clear the table, thinking I’d call Leatha and let her know about the change in teachers, and why. She’d be interested—and delighted, especially since I had dashed her dreams when I showed no interest in the family violin. Then I remembered the blinking light on the answering machine, and hit the PLAY button. The voice indicator claimed that the message had come in at 12 a.m., which meant that I hadn’t reset the machine after the last power outage. Drat. Maybe it was time for a new machine—one that could tell the time all by itself.

  Then I heard the message. “China?” The whisper was low, furtive, surreptitious. “China, it’s me. Jessica. Listen, I’m in trouble. Really, I mean it. I need help. I—”

  There was the sound of a scuffle, a stifled cry. And then the connection was broken.

  Chapter Eight

  Because of the powerful volatile oils emitted by some plants, their aromas are capable of altering our moods—calming us down, perking us up, making us more alert, stimulating our appetites, or encouraging sleep. The scent of lavender, for instance, helps to soothe headaches, relieve depression, and ease us into sleep. The scent of eucalyptus seems to enliven us and give us energy. The scent of peppermint can relieve anxiety, as well as stimulating the appetite—so much so that the poet Homer wrote of rubbing the dining table with mint before food was served. And of course we all know that the fragrance of coffee is itself a powerful wake-up call.

  China Bayles

  “Mood-Altering Plants”

  Pecan Springs Enterprise

  I stood staring at the receiver in my hand, trying to think. Jessica needed help. But where was she? Why was she whispering? Why had the call been broken off so abruptly? A scuffle, a cry—and then nothing.

  I took a deep breath. I didn’t like this situation, not at all. Wherever she was, Jessica needed help. So what could I do? Of course, if Kinsey Millhone had gotten a call like this, she would have jumped into her car and raced off to do . . . well, something. I might have raced off to do something, too, at an earlier time in my life. In fact, I was sure I had.

  But I had no idea when this call had come in. What’s more, I was a mom now, and my daughter was upstairs practicing her violin. Even if I had known where to look for Jessica tonight, I had responsibilities. I couldn’t leave Caitie and race off into the dark, especially when it might be dangerous.

  But maybe I could do something else. I picked up the phone and punched in Blackie’s number. I caught him at a meeting of the county commissioners. He told me to hang on while he went out into the hallway to take my call. A moment later he was back.

  “What’s up, China?” That deep, comforting voice of his—I relaxed immediately. Whatever was going on with Jessica, I could turn it over to Blackie. He’d take care of it.

  “Did you happen to meet Jessica Nelson from the Enterprise yesterday afternoon?” I asked. “She said she was stopping by your office to see the photos of the trailer fire. She was going to interview you.”

  “Yeah. I showed her the photos myself, and gave her a few things she could use in her story. An intern, she said, but she seemed to be really on top of it.” He chuckled. “Cute kid. Passionate. Involved.” You bet, I thought. Very involved. “The photos really got to her, though,” he added. “Afterward, I thought I probably shouldn’t have let her see the victim.”

  I nodded. “I’m asking because she was supposed to turn in her story this afternoon. I saw Hark a little after five, and he hadn’t heard from her. Then I got this call—”

  “Hang on a minute, China.” I could hear voices in the background. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go,” Blackie said hurriedly. “I’m up next, and the commissioners are ready for me.”

  “But I need to tell you about Jessica, Blackie! She didn’t turn in her story, and Hark hasn’t heard anything from her. Nobody answers at her house. And I just picked up a phone call—”

  “Sorry, China,” Blackie interrupted. “I’ve really got to go, but Sheila’s here with me. You can tell her whatever it is, and she can relay the message.”

  I frowned. Sheila was at the county commissioners’ meeting? That was a little unusual, wasn’t it? She reported to the Pecan Springs city council.

  But Sheila was already on the line, asking, “What’s this about, China?”

  I went through my story again, ending with, “And I just picked up a phone call from her that came in sometime in the last day or so on my machine. She was whispering. And then it sounded like the phone was taken away from her, and the connection was broken.”

  “Well,” Sheila said, “I can think of—”

  I broke in. “I have a bad feeling about this, Smart Cookie. I had lunch with this girl yesterday. She was really excited about writing a feature story on the trailer fire on Limekiln Road, where the woman was killed. Shot and then burned to death. Turns out that Jessica’s family—her sister and her parents—also burned to death, so she has a strong personal connection to the story. To make things worse, she’s been reading In Cold Blood. She admires the way Truman Capote got close to his story—to the victims, and to the killers.”

  “Damn,” Sheila muttered. “Lord deliver us from investigative reporters—especially the young ones. You’re not thinking that she’s tracked down the killer?”

  I thought of the excitement on Jessica’s face when she talked about the story, and about Blackie’s remark that she was passionate and involved. “I think it’s possible. She’s bright and determined—and personally engaged. She might’ve been able to dig up some leads that the investigating officers missed.” I had seen this kind of thing before. The cops interviewed people, and they clammed up. They told the officer only as much as they felt they had to, and they didn’t volunteer anything that might develop into a lead. But Jessica was young and personable and nonthreatening. She might be able to tease out information that would never be given to an official investigator.

  “Any idea where she might’ve been phoning from?” Sheila asked.

  “No. That’s why I was calling Blackie. The trailer fire is his investigation. I was hoping that he could . . .” I hesitated. What was it I had wanted him to do? “Put a deputy on it, I guess,” I finished lamely.

  Yes, that was part of it. But the truth was that I wanted to be able to turn the problem over to somebody else. To reliable, dependable Sheriff Blackwell. Tell him, and he’d take care of it. He’d fix it. He always fixed everything. That’s what he was good at.

  Sheila sighed. “I don’t want to sound like a bureaucrat, China, but if this intern is really missing, the best thing to do is file a missing-person report. You could do this, or Hark, or her roommate. Or her parents or . . .�
�� She stopped, remembering what I had told her. “Where’s her family?”

  “I don’t think she has any. Her grandmother died a year ago. She has a roommate.” I paused. “But what about that phone call?”

  “Did you pick up the number from Caller ID?”

  “We don’t have Caller ID on our land line. We’re rural out here. We don’t get all the services available in Pecan Springs.”

  Sheila was patient. “Well, I can think of a couple of legitimate reasons for that phone call, and none of them have anything to do with the story this girl is working on. Car trouble, for instance. Or a boyfriend problem. Is she seeing anybody?”

  Car trouble. A boyfriend. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “I . . . I don’t know,” I muttered. “I guess I really don’t know her very well.” Actually, I didn’t know anything about Jessica, other than what she had told me about her family and a few other little bits she’d shared in our conversations. I was beginning to feel foolish. Talk about jumping to conclusions. Here I was, making a big scene, and there was probably nothing to it at all.

  Sheila’s voice was sympathetic. “I understand that you’re anxious, China, but there’s nothing anybody can do tonight.”

  Now I really felt foolish. I know very well that there are things the cops can do and things they can’t. I had reached out to the sheriff for help, but all I had really wanted to do was turn the problem over to him and be done with it.

  Sheila was going on. “Tell you what. If she calls you back and you can pin down a location, let me know. If not, and if she still hasn’t been heard from by midday tomorrow, come in and—”

  “I know, I know.” I sighed. “File the report.”

  “You got it. File the report.” She paused for a moment, then lowered her voice. “Maybe you were wondering why I’m here? At the county commissioners’ meeting, that is.”

  “Well, yes, I was wondering, sorta. But I thought maybe you and Blackie were going out somewhere afterward.” I chuckled wryly. “Like maybe dancing. Or a late dinner. Or whatever a pair of law enforcement officers do when they’re off duty.”

  “I’m here for moral support,” Sheila said. “Blackie’s turning in his badge tonight. Well, not tonight, exactly,” she amended quickly. “Tonight, he’s telling the commissioners that he’s decided not to run again.”

  “Not running . . .” I sucked in my breath. “You . . . you’re kidding, Sheila!”

  “Uh-uh.” She was all business. “There’ll be a press release tomorrow. I thought you and Mike would like a little advance warning.”

  “Not running? I can’t believe it. I really can’t. I mean . . .” I was nearly speechless. “What made him . . .”

  And then I understood. “It’s the wedding, isn’t it?”

  Blackie had always said that two cops in one family are one cop too many, so he was quitting. I was astonished at the thought. If anybody left the profession, I would have expected it to be Sheila, when she got pregnant—if she got pregnant. But Blackie? Law enforcement had been in his family for decades. It was in his blood.

  “Yes, it’s the wedding.” Sheila’s laugh was deep and rich. “We decided that the only way we could get married was for one of us to quit.”

  “But . . . but how did you . . .” I broke off. It wasn’t any of my business how they decided.

  But Sheila understood what I wasn’t quite able to ask. “How? I’ll tell you if you promise never to tell a soul—except Mike, of course. Blackie wants to have a talk with him when he gets back from his trip. He has some ideas for what he’d like to do after he leaves office.”

  “Okay, I promise, Smart Cookie,” I said weakly. “Tell me how you decided.”

  There was a silence. At last, Sheila said, “We tossed for it.”

  “You tossed for it?” I repeated incredulously. “No. No way.” Blackie and Sheila are the most rational people I know. The idea that they would submit their futures to the toss of a coin—

  “Honest, China. That’s what happened. We discussed the issue from all sides, but we couldn’t come up with a logical way to decide. We figured the best thing to do was to flip for it. Heads he quit, tails I quit. It came up heads.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it,” Sheila said. “It’s true.” There was a buzz of crowd noises in the background. “The commissioners are finished, China. Blackie’s coming out. I have to go. Good night.”

  Shaking my head, I hung up the phone. Blackie Blackwell leaving office? That’s something I would never in the world have predicted. Well, at least I knew one thing for sure. Hark would have a great headline for the next edition of the Enterprise: “County Sheriff Turns In Badge, Will Wed Pecan Springs Police Chief.” Even without the coin toss, it was a great story.

  But none of this took me any closer to a decision about Jessica. I put on the kettle and spooned some dried mint leaves into a tea ball. A cup of mint tea was what I needed. Might help me think a little more clearly.

  While I was waiting for my tea to brew, I sat down and replayed Jessica’s call, listening carefully.

  “China, it’s me. Jessica. Listen, I’m in trouble. Really, I mean it. I need help. I—”

  Car trouble? Well, maybe. A boyfriend problem? I suppose, although it didn’t quite sound like that. And why had the call been cut off? Jessica had been so determined to get her byline on the story. Surely she wouldn’t let something minor get in the way of making her deadline.

  I picked up the phone again and called Hark’s cell. He answered on the third ring. His voice sounded blurry and I could hear music in the background, and the sharp crack of a pool cue. I tried to tell him about the phone call, but he wasn’t listening. He was at Beans’, he said. He had tried calling Jessica several times, both her cell and her home phone. He had even driven over to her house on Santa Fe, in the hills above the campus. She wasn’t there.

  “Place is locked up tight as a drum,” he growled. “No lights in the house. No cars in the drive. No story, either. Next time you see that kid, you can tell her from me that she’s fired.” There was a clink and a rattle of glasses, and he shouted, “Hey, Bob—another round over here.” To me, he said, “You got that, China? You see her, you tell her she’s fired. F-I-R-D, fired.” He cut off the call.

  I rolled my eyes. Even good guys can occasionally have one beer too many.

  I put the phone on the table and picked up my cup, frowning as I sipped my peppermint tea. I was beginning to get the idea that nobody cared about Jessica but me—and that made me feel . . . well, responsible, damn it. She was young and energetic and passionate and impulsive—a combination that had gotten me into trouble more times than I cared to remember. What if Jessica was in some kind of trouble right now?

  I picked up a pencil and paper and tried to remember the conversation I’d had with her in the car. Where had she said she was going when she dropped me off after our lunch? After a few moments of frowning concentration, I came up with a list. She was going back to the burned-out trailer, where she planned to take a few more pictures. After that, she was going to stop at the auto parts place and talk to Scott Sheridan. Then the sheriff’s office, to interview him and get a look at the crime scene photos. And then she wanted to talk to . . . who?

  Oh, yes, the girl who used to live in the trailer. The one with a name like a B-movie actress. LaFarge. Lucy LaFarge, who had an apartment on North Brazos: 101 North Brazos, Jessica had said, which put it at the corner of Brazos and Matagorda.

  I couldn’t do anything about the situation tonight. But tomorrow was another day, and I now had a list of the stops Jessica had planned to make: the burned trailer, A-Plus Auto Parts, the sheriff’s office, Lucy LaFarge. And then home.

  And in addition to the list, I had a new determination. Looking for Jessica wasn’t something I could turn over to the police. I needed to follow her trail—the trail she’d given me. I looked at the list and added one more item, off to one side, because I wasn’t sure how it was connected. Terry Fl
etcher, who hadn’t been seen since before the trailer fire. I put a question mark after her name. Was Terry involved with this, or was her absence just a coincidence? If she was connected, how? Could it have been Terry who burned to death, or Terry who—

  My questions were interrupted by a small voice. “Have you asked him yet, Aunt China?”

  I turned to see Caitie standing at the door to the kitchen. She was wearing her pink pajamas and her fuzzy pink slippers with the floppy rabbit ears and a black nose on each toe, a gift from McQuaid’s mother.

  “Who?” I replied blankly, still puzzling over my questions. “Asked him what?” The orange tabby cat pushed past her legs and came into the kitchen, and I remembered, guiltily.

  “Oh. Okay. Let’s call him right now, and you can ask him yourself.” I picked up the cell phone again, and when McQuaid came on the line, I said, “Caitie’s got a question for you, Uncle Mike, and then I have some breaking news. About Blackie.”

  Caitie reached for the phone. “We have a new kitty, Uncle Mike!”

  It took her less than five minutes to negotiate the terms of Pumpkin’s admission to the family (she had to feed him, clean his kitty litter tray, make sure he didn’t snack on Brian’s lizards, and so on). Meanwhile I located a can of Khat’s food that hadn’t found its way from our cupboard to the shop. I opened it and Pumpkin demonstrated that the saucer of milk had barely taken the edge off. He was hungry for the real thing, and lots of it, if you don’t mind.

  “So Pumpkin is a keeper?” I asked McQuaid, when Caitie handed me the phone, her eyes shining, her smile a joy to see. Carrying the phone, I went to the cookie jar and took out two for her. “Pour yourself a glass of milk, honey,” I added, and she went to the fridge.

  “I’ve already got a beer,” McQuaid said with a chuckle. “But yeah, I’m okay with the cat if you’re okay. What does Howard say? If I remember right, cats are on his do-not-call list.”

  “Howard votes yes,” I said, “the dirty double-crosser.” The cat had finished his cat food and was climbing, with purposeful deliberation, into Howard Cosell’s basset basket beside the kitchen stove, where Howard was already curled up. “You’d never believe what I’m looking at,” I added. “Howard just allowed the cat to get into his basket with him. Looks to me like they’ve adopted each other.” Which was nice, I supposed. Now that Brian is growing up, Howard often seems lonely. Lizards are not very good company.