Finding Mary Blaine

by Jodi Thomas

  “Oh, no. Cooking isn’t dangerous. It’s a gift. Mom says so.” Tuesday continued though no one listened. “I’m like an artist with my muffins. I create new ones all the time.”

  “It’s a risk within the boundaries you asked for.” Miller watched Blaine. “From a stool in the back I can see the entire café.”

  Blaine nodded. He was right.

  “I could provide my own chef’s hat. I got it in a cooking class I took.” Tuesday strained her neck to see into the tiny kitchen behind the counter.

  “I’ll be right here every minute you are,” Miller said to Blaine. “If you spot him, he won’t get away.”

  “Who won’t get away?” Tuesday asked.

  Blaine finally turned to the girl. “Customers.” She glanced at Miller. “The pay is twelve dollars an hour and the clock starts as soon as we get this place cleaned up.”

  “Fifteen. After all, I’m the cook.”

  Miller nodded.

  Tuesday pushed up her sleeves. “Well, we best get to work.” She turned to her mother. “Mom, hand me your keys and I’ll go get the cleaning supplies.”

  Mrs. Bailey shook her head. “I’ll go get them. You stay and help move the tables. We can have this place cleaned and ready to open by tomorrow night. I’ll help you clean, then if I’m not too tired, I’ll help you move to an apartment this weekend.”

  Blaine doubted that they could be open so fast, but she didn’t want to spoil the mood. Her muscles ached for a project almost as much as Tuesday wanted to escape her mother’s house. Everyone set to work.

  A half hour later when she helped Miller carry out trash, she whispered, “Can you afford to do this? We’ll make some, but it will cost.”

  “I can afford it. I’ve been working on it since we last talked.” He tossed a load of trash as if the bag were filled with leaves. “With the bomber out there, I can’t afford not to.”

  By midnight, the windows sparkled and the floor shone. Mrs. B. and her daughter polished the kitchen. They’d made a list of supplies they needed to order while Miller carried out more loads of trash. Shakespeare disappeared, but Blaine thought she heard him snoring behind the alley door.

  Blaine polished the last tabletop and when she looked up, she saw faces staring back from beyond the glass. A few thugs, the Annas, and several more of the homeless.

  “Come back tomorrow night,” she yelled. “Everyone gets to test the muffins.”

  They all nodded and wandered away, but at dusk the next day they migrated back. A half-painted sign announced Midnight Muffins, and Miller unloaded stock at the back door. The homeless filtered in for their promised muffins and Tuesday had worked without sleep to make sure she had a selection for them.

  The Annas were the first to step through the door. Blaine practiced on them. Tuesday made three dozen of each of four kinds of muffins. She’d also managed to figure out how to brew coffee in the huge pots Miller delivered.

  Blaine brought the Annas a muffin and a cup of coffee, then left the bill in the center of the table that said, “No charge. Thank you. Come again.”

  She stood beside Tuesday and watched them eat, patting their lips with paper napkins between bites. The Annas didn’t say a word to one another, but when Blaine returned to offer a refill, they both thanked her and stood. Both left a dime on the table as a tip.

  The pattern continued until midnight. A few of the street people came in at a time, none were asked to pay, but most left a few cents. Students wandered in, some ordering only coffee as they sat and read at the little lighted tables, others splitting muffins and talking of things that only seem of great interest while one is in college.

  The bill was the same each time. No charge. Students left folding money as tips and a businessman who ordered only coffee left a five as he stood and thanked Blaine for the atmosphere.

  She looked around. The place wasn’t like a bright, glaring diner, but more like a living room that invited conversation.

  By the second night an Open sign hung over the door. The menu over the bar read, “Bottomless cup of coffee, one dollar. Muffins, three dollars if you have the money. If not, you’re welcome to one and welcome to come back anytime.”

  “You’ll go bankrupt in a week,” Mrs. Bailey said as she frowned at the menu. “I should have been here to help you with that. But I can’t be everywhere even though it seems my advice is needed everywhere I look.”

  “Maybe it will work.” Blaine didn’t want to argue.

  When Miller walked her home, she’d asked him again about the operating costs and he’d mumbled something about having no reason to save. The doc had saved all his life and had no one to leave it to. Even Mrs. Bailey had sworn to haunt Early throughout the ages if he left her that huge old house she’d had to clean for years.

  Tuesday made three dozen of six kinds of muffins the third night. They ran out by ten and had to close.

  For the first time since the bombing, Blaine slept without dreaming. Exhaustion from honest work felt great. Also, since Tuesday had moved out of her mom’s home, Mrs. B. claimed a bedroom upstairs beside the doctor’s. If Dr. Early needed her, Mrs. B. would hear him and call her right away.

  The old doctor’s hours out of bed were dwindling. By the weekend they moved their reading times to afternoons for he was too weak to come downstairs for long. He still insisted on dressing, wearing a tie and jacket as if Blaine was important company and not someone crashing on his couch. When he tired, she’d help him climb the stairs and he’d say good-night even though the sun might still be bright.

  When Blaine got home each night she’d check on him to find him waiting for her to sit on the corner of his bed and read him to sleep once more.

  Every day, the moment Blaine awoke, she couldn’t wait to get to the café. To her surprise, Tuesday felt the same way. The girl liked to bake early in the day, so by the time they opened she could be out front in her chef’s hat taking orders—and then compliments. She had a great deal of her mother in her and talked naturally to everyone who came in. “What’s your name, mister?” “You want the leaded or unleaded coffee?” “You look like a blueberry lover to me.” “Welcome back. I got a chocolate chip muffin you’ll like even more than that apple cinnamon you had last night.”

  Blaine couldn’t be so friendly, but Miller had been right about how people talk as if no one stood beside them pouring coffee. She caught bits of conversations as she moved among the tables.

  Each time the bell sounded, she looked up, searching for gray eyes beneath a blue cap. No matter how busy the hour, Blaine never forgot the reason she was there. Standing on the corner, she reminded herself, watching.

  Three days passed. Business grew and nothing happened. Her life settled once more into the peace of routine.

  Until the fourth night, a tall man in a beard stepped through the door and Blaine’s heart stopped.

  Twenty-Seven

  Mark stepped into the café along with the wind. The night had a chill. He thought a cup of coffee might warm him a little. He’d passed the place several times, but had never bothered to stop.

  A huge man in the far corner read a newspaper. A few college students with books spread among their coffee cups argued over some theory. A waitress totaled up someone’s bill at the cash register.

  Mark took the first seat at the empty counter, deciding if any more people came in, he’d get his coffee to go. He was becoming a hermit.

  “What can I get you?” a woman in a chef’s hat asked. She sounded tired, but still made an effort to smile at him.

  As he always did, he looked up, hoping to see a hint of the woman Randell had described. The one who’d appeared the morning after the bombing, then vanished. The one who might be his wife and have no memory of it.

  No thin, blond woman hid inside this girl. “Coffee,” he answered.

  “How about a muffin?” The girl winked too boldly to be flirting. “You look like a man in need of a poppy seed with icing on top. No extra charge for the calories
.”

  The waitress with brown curly hair finished at the register and passed him a cup of coffee while the chef tried to make a sale. She also passed him a tin of cream without bothering to ask if he needed any.

  Mark mixed the cream in his cup and agreed to try a poppy-seed muffin. He looked over at the woman who’d handed him the coffee, but her head was down. The lights were low enough to almost make the place seem like a bar, but the few beams still caught highlights in her curls.

  He waited for her to look up at him, but she didn’t. She stood about the same height as Blaine, only maybe ten pounds heavier. A little thick in the waist, but not a bad figure.

  She turned and lifted a pair of black-framed glasses from the shelf beside the pass-through to the kitchen. Her eyes disappeared behind the frames.

  Mark sipped his coffee and studied the others in the room. When his gaze settled on the big man in the corner, he noticed the stranger had lowered his paper and was staring back. Mark looked away first. He had no argument with the man. Let him stare.

  The chef returned with a warm muffin. She set it down in front of him, then leaned on the counter. She stood just tall enough that when she leaned toward him her ample breasts rested on the bar. It crossed Mark’s mind that some take a load off other ways than getting off their feet.

  He took a bite of the muffin.

  “How do you like it?” she asked without waiting for him to finish chewing.

  “Great,” he mumbled.

  “I make them fresh every morning. Secret recipe I have. We got some customers say they’re addictive.”

  Mark took another bite so he wouldn’t have to talk to the girl.

  “You could stop by for one every night when you get off work. I’d save you one if I knew you were coming.” When he didn’t answer, she added, “That is if you get off work about the same time every night. Lots of folks do.”

  He didn’t want to tell her why he walked the streets or where he worked, so he answered with a question. “You own this place?”

  The cook shook her head. “No, Mary and I just work here.”

  Mark glanced at the woman with her back to him. She made coffee about five feet away. He noticed her hands were long like Blaine’s, only her nails were short and damaged, not long and perfect like his wife’s. He wanted to ask the waitress to turn around. Mary had been the name of the woman who had had Blaine’s bag. Probably a long shot, but it could be the same person.

  “You married?” the chef asked.

  “Yes,” he answered without thinking. He had no plan to open up to this chatty girl behind the counter. Wherever she might be right now, Blaine was still his wife.

  The waitress stopped to clean up a spill she’d made. She still didn’t look up, so Mark just watched the light dance in her hair.

  “Oh.” The cook sighed. “Figures. All the cute ones are nowadays. My mom says my chances of meeting a single, straight man shrink with every passing day. Not that I’m looking, mind you. I’ve got my career in full swing right now and haven’t got the time to even date.”

  Mark downed the last of his hot coffee in one long gulp. He placed the cup in the saucer and smiled at the chef. “Great muffins. Would you mind putting one in a bag for me?”

  “Be glad to. I’ll get a hot one from the oven.” The woman headed toward the kitchen. “For your wife?”

  “No, my neighbor.” Mark regretted it the minute he said the words. He knew the chubby chef would return with more questions. With luck, she hadn’t heard his remark.

  He watched the other woman put the lid on the coffeepot.

  “Miss?”

  She didn’t look up.

  “Could I have another cup?”

  The shy woman lifted the coffeepot and moved toward him, keeping her head down. From the little he could see, she wore no makeup and her face seemed more rounded even with the black frames of her glasses slashing across, but for a moment, he thought she looked just a bit like Blaine.

  Mark stared at the coffee as it dropped into his cup. He had to stop looking for Blaine in every woman he passed. Friends were starting to tell him to get on with his life. How could he tell them he no longer had one?

  “Thanks.” He reached for the cream.

  “You’re welcome,” she answered in a low voice that reminded him of an old song about blue velvet.

  He didn’t look up, but realized she made no effort to move away. For some odd reason, he liked having her close and thought maybe if he didn’t move, she’d stay.

  The world turned a little slower and she leaned an inch closer. Out of the corner of his eye, he swore she raised a hand almost to his hair.

  The bell over the door broke the moment. She stepped away and Mark heard Randell’s voice behind him.

  “What’s up, copper?” Mark raised his cup without turning around. “Shot any bad guys lately?”

  Randell slapped his shoulder as he moved into the empty seat. “Nope. How about you, chased any ambulances lately?”

  “Nope. It’s a slow night.”

  Randell’s tone lowered. “I’ve been looking for you. I’ve got a theory I’d like to talk over with you.”

  The chef returned, greeting Randell like an old friend, even pouring coffee before he’d ordered. While Randell moved over to say something to the big hairy man in the corner, the cook gave Mark her full attention. She asked him what he did.

  Mark glanced around, but the waitress had disappeared into the kitchen.

  Mark answered simply, “I walk.”

  If the girl thought the answer strange, she made no comment. She just invited him to come back and handed him the bill. Randell held far more interest.

  Mark dropped a ten and stood. “Finish your coffee,” he mumbled low to Randell. “I’ll be across the street when you finish.”

  Mark walked out without a backward glance. He stood across the street for a long while watching the people in the café through the painted glass. Every now and then he’d catch a glimpse of the silent woman. She worked hard, he thought, for she circled the chef several times a minute. The huge man in the corner never moved. He clearly wasn’t in there for the coffee.

  Finally, Randell joined him. The cop took his time to light a cigar.

  Mark waited.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he began as they stood side by side. “What if your wife didn’t just run off or have a memory loss? What if there’s a reason she disappeared?”

  “Like what?” Mark doubted the cop could think of a theory he hadn’t turned over a hundred times in his own mind.

  “Like, someone kidnapped her and is holding her.”

  “They would have called in with demands by now. Besides, anyone who knew my bank account wouldn’t even take the cat.”

  Randell took a long pull on his cigar and released a smoky cloud. “What if the person who laid that dynamite was trying to kill Blaine? No one else, just Blaine. And somehow, she knew it. Then she’d run and she’d hide.”

  Randell had named the one thing Mark hadn’t thought of. “But why? There’s not a soul on earth who hates her. Why would anyone want to kill, or even hurt, her?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t her they wanted to hurt, but you.”

  “Me!”

  “I’m just thinking,” Randell hurried to add. “But every time I read about the clinic bombing in the paper, it seems you’re being talked about on another page. Blaine’s disappearance stopped you from running for office, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Randell had Mark’s full attention.

  “Well, it just crossed my mind that the two could be linked.”

  Mark’s mind was already running ahead of the cop. If the events were linked, who was the one person from the beginning who’d suggested he might pull out of the race? Harry Winslow, at the hospital that night. And he’d mentioned it again the next morning at the office. In fact Winslow had been making it so easy on him, so easy he didn’t even have to come into the office.

  When Mark looked at Randell
, the cop was watching him. “You know something?”

  “No,” Mark answered too quickly. “But I have an idea. Give me a few days to do some digging and I’ll get back to you.”

  “Be careful. Anyone willing to try and kill Blaine would do the same to you if you get too close to something.”

  “I will.” Mark knew the warning was not casual.

  “One other thing.” Randell tossed his cigar in the water of the gutter. “I think you’re being tailed.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.” Randell walked away without another word. The café lights blinked off, and the big man Mark had noticed reading a paper in the back of the café walked both women to a car. The chubby girl removed her hat and bounced into the driver’s seat. The huge guy seemed to take extra care helping the other waitress fold into the tiny car.

  “See Mary gets home safe,” Mark heard the big man say as he closed the car door.

  “I always do,” came the answer from the driver.

  After they left, Mark walked the streets down on the West End for a while, needing to feel more alone than he did downtown. He thought through everything Randell had said, tearing every point apart, taking both sides. One name kept coming to mind, his partner, his mentor.

  It was too late to do anything tonight, but tomorrow morning he planned to be on time to work for a change. Maybe even mention getting back into the race just to see Winslow’s reaction. If the cop’s hunch was right, he might be able to find out something that would help.

  Mark turned toward home, forcing himself to relax. He couldn’t get the waitress at the café off his mind. How long would it take him before he could ask her if she knew anything about Blaine’s bag? She might know nothing, but if he moved too fast, she probably wouldn’t talk to him even if she had information.

  He thought of calling Randell and mentioning Mary, but Mark wasn’t sure he wanted the cop involved. After all, it wasn’t as if he had a theory. He’d simply met a woman named Mary. There might be a connection. There might not.

  Hell, Mark thought, he hadn’t even really met her. He just knew her name.