by Mary Marks
Towsley briefly closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Well, I haven’t done this before, but I’ll look into booking passage on the train.”
Birdie’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no! I could never go on another train. Not after what happened the last time.”
“I’m sorry?” Towsley peered at her.
“I rode on a train that derailed back in the sixties. Hundreds of poor souls were killed and injured. I’m still haunted by nightmares. I swore I’d never get on another train again. And I haven’t.”
Never in our sixteen years of friendship had Birdie ever told us about a train accident. I leaned toward her. “Really? You never mentioned any of this before. Where did it happen?”
“India.”
Whoa! This was a whole side of Birdie Watson I never suspected. What was the story behind that little detail? “India! Really? How come you never told us you traveled to India?”
Birdie waved her hand. “I don’t know. I don’t like to think about the past.” She turned to Towsley. “We’ll have to drive Russell to Oregon.”
Towsley shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “Very well. We could arrange to have someone transport Mr. Watson in a decedent vehicle, but the trip will take two to three days and be very costly. Are you sure you don’t want to fly him to his eternal rest?” He eyed her overalls. “It would be more, uh, economical.”
Birdie leaned forward. “If by decedent vehicle you mean a hearse, I could ride in front with the driver.” Birdie couldn’t drive to Oregon on her own. Her license had been confiscated a few years ago. She failed the driving test when she bashed a police car while attempting to parallel park.
Towsley coughed into his hand. “I’m sorry, dear lady, but only Pearly Gates employees are allowed inside the decedent vehicle. Insurance, and all that. But I could—for an extra fee, of course—arrange for you to ride in style in a limousine right behind your husband. In a sort of solemn and dignified cortège. Does this appeal?”
She wrinkled her forehead. “How much would it cost?”
“Portland, Oregon, did you say? Let me see.” Towsley turned his cell phone into a calculator and punched in numbers. “Rental of two vehicles, gas, mileage, meals, overnight accommodations, and salaries for two drivers, I’d say you were looking at roughly twenty-five hundred dollars a day.”
He turned off his cell phone and smiled at Birdie. “Assuming the trip takes three days up and three days back, fifteen thousand dollars.”
In a trembling voice, Birdie said, “Mercy! Fifteen thousand’s an awful lot of money!” Her eyes filled with tears.
We couldn’t let money stop Birdie from leaving town.
I put my arm around her shoulder. “We could cut the expense in half, Birdie. Lucy and I will drive you to Oregon. Right, Lucy?”
“Absolutely. We’ll take my car. It has plenty of room. We’ll follow the hearse, just the same as if you were in a limousine. We won’t leave your side until Russell has been safely laid to rest.”
Towsley’s face fell. “Are you sure you won’t opt for the limousine? All three of you ladies could ride in comfort.”
I squeezed Birdie’s hand. “We’re quite sure.”
We followed him to the casket room, where coffins were strategically placed. A plain, unlined pine box sat closest to the entrance. The farther we walked into the room, the greater the prices grew.
Halfway across the area, Lucy nudged me in the ribs with her elbow and whispered, “Get a load of that little number!” She pointed to a purple casket with a gold LA Lakers logo painted on the side. A part of the lid was propped open above where the head would be positioned. Pasted on the inside, for the deceased to admire for eternity, were smiling photos of Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kobe Bryant.
Birdie stopped in front of a large mahogany casket with brass handles. “This looks like something Russell would like.” She touched the white velvet lining. “Distinguished, but not too lavish.”
A half hour later, she finalized the details, signed a contract, and wrote a check. Towsley promised to coordinate everything with the McMinnville cemetery.
We headed west on the 101 Freeway toward Encino. When we got to the 405 interchange, Lucy said, “Dang it, I hate driving this part of the freeway. You have to move over two lanes so you don’t accidentally head toward Sacramento.”
Birdie clutched the grab bar above the passenger door. “Well, how are you going to drive all the way to McMinnville, dear? We’re going to travel a thousand miles of freeway. What if we take a wrong turn?”
I reached forward from the rear seat and patted Birdie’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll be following the hearse, remember? What could possibly go wrong?”
CHAPTER 5
Once we got back to Birdie’s house, she insisted on making lunch. “I’m not sick, Martha dear. I’m perfectly capable of making a couple of cheese sandwiches. Besides, I need to use up this bread before it goes stale.”
Lucy and I sat at the green table in her kitchen while Birdie vigorously sawed slices from a loaf of homemade bread with a long, serrated knife. The message light blinked wildly on her cordless phone.
“Do you want me to play your voice mail?” I asked.
“Just delete them. They’re probably from those reporters.”
“But what if the coroner’s office called? Or the FBI?”
She put down the knife and wrapped the remainder of the loaf in a plastic bag. “I didn’t think of that. I guess you might as well. There’s a pencil and pad next to the phone to write down anything important.”
Only two messages were from the media. Several quilting friends phoned offering condolences and help. “Let me know if I can do anything,” and “I’m here for you if you need something.” Two quilters said they’d be over in the afternoon with food.
Birdie handed us each a plate, with a cheese and pickle sandwich, and poured three glasses of iced tea. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I’m going to have to get used to cooking for one now.”
“Oh, hon, I know this is hard.” Lucy reached a comforting hand across the table as Birdie dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “Remember, you’re not alone. You have Martha and me.”
I finished my sandwich and leaned back in the chair. “Okay, Birdie, I’m dying to ask about the train wreck you mentioned in Pearly Gates Mortuary. What were you doing in India?”
A faint smile curved her lips. “Don’t you remember how the sixties were? Everyone tried out new things and enjoyed breaking the rules.”
“Weren’t you and Russell married at the time?”
She looked at her hands and played with the hem of her napkin. “Sort of.”
When she remained silent, Lucy said, “Come on, girlfriend. You can’t just leave us hanging.”
Birdie took a deep breath, and her cheeks flushed pink. “We lived on a communal farm near Ashland, Oregon, started by a group of our friends. We grew our own vegetables. Raised goats. We called our place Aquarius.”
Now I understood why Birdie preferred to wear overalls. She must have gotten into the habit of wearing them during her days on the farm. “I can just picture you growing vegetables and feeding goats. But I have a tough time seeing Russell getting his hands dirty.”
Birdie disappeared into the living room and came back with an old photo album. “Here. If you don’t believe me, take a look at this.” She opened the album and extracted a group photo. Lucy and I crowded around her to get a better look. Standing in the middle of the photo, a shapely and gorgeous younger Birdie wore a pair of cut-off shorts and a white tank top. Thick auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders to her waist.
Lucy tapped the image. “Look at those fabulous legs. You were one hot tomato, girlfriend. But which one is Russell?”
Birdie pointed to an eager-looking man standing on her right, wearing jeans and a denim shirt, with mutton chop sideburns and straight brown hair in a Beatles’ haircut.
I had to squint hard to see the resemblance to the
prim, white-haired old banker I knew. Nowadays, when Russell wasn’t wearing a tie, he wore Ralph Lauren Polo shirts and slacks. “Get out! This was Russell? He looks so . . . relaxed.”
Lucy tapped the photo again. “Who’s the good-looking guy with the long hair and mustache standing on the other side of you? He reminds me of a young Richard Gere.”
“Russell’s brother, Denver.”
Standing next to Denver was a blonde in a pink halter top and long cotton skirt.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
Birdie knit her brows. “That’s Feather. She and Denver had a son a few years after we took this photo. Standing on the end is Rainbow, my friend who called yesterday from New York.” She pointed to a girl in her late teens with long braids.
I finished the last of my iced tea. “So when you said you were ‘sort of’ married, did you mean you and Russell just lived together? These days, shacking up is no big deal. But back then the two of you must have felt pretty daring.”
Birdie took a deep breath. “Not exactly. We called our farm Aquarius because we thought we were ushering in a new age.” She paused. “Everyone was married to everyone else.”
Lucy held up her hand like a stop sign. “Wait. Did you say everyone was married to everyone else? As in sex?”
Birdie blushed. “Those were experimental times, Lucy dear. People tried lots of alternative lifestyles.”
“Not where I come from. You only had two alternative lifestyles in Moorcroft, Wyoming. Live on a ranch or live in town. Maybe a third if you count old Weezer, who spent half his nights sleeping it off in jail.”
I smiled at Lucy’s description of her hometown. “Why India?”
“Some of us were into TM and wanted to make a pilgrimage to the ashram of the Maharishi.”
Lucy raised her hand again. “I forgot. What is TM again?”
“Transcendental Meditation.”
“Right.”
I had a hard time picturing Russell Watson living on a commune raising goats, let alone sitting cross-legged in the dirt and meditating. “So you and Russell went to India?”
Birdie bit her lip. “Not exactly. Russell had just landed a good job in Portland. He wanted us to move away from the commune, get married, and live a straight life. That wasn’t what I wanted, so Russell left for Portland without me, and I took off with one of the other men.”
Lucy gasped. “Who are you and what did you do to my old friend Birdie?”
Birdie cleared her throat and looked at her napkin again. “I went to India for six months with Russell’s younger brother, Denver.”
Lucy’s eyes got wider with each revelation. “Dang it, Birdie. Just when I thought I knew everything about you.”
“How did you get into a train accident?” I asked.
“Denny and I were traveling from Madhya Pradesh to Mumbai when the train derailed. So many died. The screams were horrible. I couldn’t leave India fast enough. I just wanted to go home. They took us in buses all the way back to Mumbai. It was called Bombay then. From there we made our way back to the States on a merchant ship.”
“So, if you ran away with Denver, how did you end up with Russell?” Lucy asked.
Birdie briefly raised her shoulder. “I guess the accident changed me. I kept having nightmares. Nowadays they call it PTSD. Anyway, I just needed to feel safe. Denver was a lot of fun, but not very reliable. When we got back, he wanted to hitchhike around the country. Hop on freight trains just for the adventure. I was too frightened. One morning Russell showed up at Aquarius. He wore a suit and tie. Everyone made fun of him and called him a ‘sellout.’ But after spending six months with Denver, I could see what I had missed before. Russell represented security. Safety. He took me aside and asked me to reconsider. I packed my things, and we left for Portland the same afternoon.”
Lucy began to gather the empty dishes on the table. “How did Denver react?”
“He was angry. And hurt. He tried several times to persuade me to return to Aquarius, but I was done with that life.”
“So the ‘problem’ between the brothers was you?” Lucy bent her fingers in the air quotes she loved so much.
Birdie closed her eyes. “That’s what started it, yes.”
Did Denver have anything to do with the “payback” that got Russell killed? What were the chances of a man on Medicare carrying such a profound grudge after nearly fifty years?
We moved from the kitchen table to the living room. I settled in my favorite green chenille chair and spread my quilting supplies on the broad arms. Adjusting the Double Wedding Ring quilt in the hoop, I began to carefully stitch the white background fabric around the intersecting loops. The Double Wedding Ring design resembled the Olympic flag, with rows of linking circles. I had pieced each circle with dozens of wedges of fabric, using one color family for each circle. The one I currently outlined consisted of different yellow fabrics.
In the afternoon, two quilty ladies showed up with a foil-covered pan of lasagna, a tuna noodle casserole topped with cheese, lemon pound cake, cornbread muffins, and a pan of double chocolate brownies—everything homemade. Lucy pulled over chairs from the dining room and served coffee with some of the brownies on a plate. I couldn’t wait for them to leave so I could ask Birdie about the mysterious phone call Russell received before his death.
Once we were alone again, I asked, “Birdie, do you remember telling us Russell got an upsetting phone call before he was killed?”
She got very quiet and studied my face. “I can tell you think the two things are connected.”
“Well, we did briefly talk about the possibility yesterday.”
“Yes, we did. I’ve also been thinking about the same thing off and on since then. What if Russell’s murder wasn’t random? What if he knew the man who shot him? Otherwise, why would both Arlo and Agent Lancet ask if anyone wanted to harm my husband?”
I should have known better than to suppose Birdie wouldn’t figure it out. She was a fan of every cop show on TV and spoke forensics as a second language.
“What exactly do you remember about that day? Did you hear whether the caller was a man or a woman?”
“I didn’t answer the phone, so I can’t say for sure. But from the tone of Russell’s voice, I had the impression he spoke to a man.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘What do you want?’ like he knew the person. He listened for a minute and then he said, ‘When hell freezes over!’ and hung up.”
Lucy gasped. “You don’t think the caller was his brother, Denver, do you? Could he be trying to get even after all this time?”
“For pity’s sake!” Birdie closed her eyes. “You’re asking about ancient history. Denver moved on with his life years ago. Just like we did.”
I continued to prod. “Did the call come in on your home phone or a cell phone?”
“I think . . . yes. Our home phone.”
“Did you ask Russell about the call, or why he was angry?”
She sighed. “No. He wouldn’t have told me even if I asked. We seldom discussed his business at the bank.”
“How did you know this wasn’t personal? After all, the call came to your home phone, not his business phone.”
She pulled her head back slightly. “I guess I don’t know for sure. I just assumed the call was business. It’s not like he had a lot of friends who called the house.”
“I think you should tell the FBI everything. Give them permission to examine your phone records. Maybe they’ll be able to discover the identity of the caller.”
Lucy helped herself to another brownie and pursued another line of questioning. “How old was Russell, anyway?”
“The same as me. Seventy-six.”
“Yet he went to the bank every day? Why wouldn’t he retire and enjoy life? He didn’t really have to work, did he?”
Birdie rubbed her eyes. “You know Russell. He loved his job. Work was his main interest. He could no more stay home doing nothing than he could sew a qu
ilt.”
“Did the bank ever push him to retire?” Lucy asked.
“No. Russell may have been in his seventies, but he excelled at his job. As branch manager, he focused on bringing in new business. Over the years, he acquired their biggest accounts. Multimillion-dollar companies. And he maintained relationships with all of them. If Russell retired, the accounts might’ve gone elsewhere.”
Lucy examined her fingernails. “What about you? Did you ever ask him to retire?”
“Lord, no!” Birdie shook her head. “He would’ve been miserable. And he would’ve made me miserable hanging around the house all day. We always had an understanding. He did his thing and I did mine.”
I learned significantly more about Birdie that day than I had learned in the previous sixteen years. She’d been a hippie, lived on a commune, and ran away to an ashram with Russell Watson’s brother, Denver. Yet in the end, the free spirit chose to be with Russell, a conservative banker.
And I learned so much more about Russell. He hadn’t always been so conventional. Even though Birdie ran off with his brother, he took her back when she wanted to settle down. Perhaps I had judged him too harshly over the years.
What I perceived as indifference toward his wife might have merely been a willingness to give the peripatetic Birdie some space. Maybe Birdie’s agreement with Russell to each do their own thing hadn’t been his choice. Maybe it was the only way he could be sure she’d stick around.
CHAPTER 6
Birdie sent me home with the rest of the pan of double chocolate brownies and a generous serving of lasagna wrapped in foil. I pulled off a tiny piece of the mozzarella for Bumper and warmed the pasta in the microwave.
The phone rang. “How’d you like a visit from Arthur tonight?”
Arlo Beavers never announced himself when he called. He had an annoying habit of plunging right into the conversation without so much as a preamble.
“Good evening to you, too, Arlo.”
“Well? We could be there around eight. I promise we won’t stay long. Unless you want us to. . . .”