by Tess Rothery
“It doesn’t look busy in there.”
“Excuse me?” Taylor scanned the sidewalk outside her front door. A waving hand across the street caught her eye.
“Phyllis at Artifact Antiques called and said she had an old plow your grandfather would like, so I’m just headed in to buy it.
“Does Grandpa Quinny need a new plow?” His collection of pioneer farm equipment was beginning to outgrow what had seemed like an ample acreage.
“Does anyone need a new antique plow?” She laughed, that rich, full sound. “Of course not, but he’d love it, so I’m going in after it. Then I’m coming into Flour Sax to discuss this situation with you like an adult. Things need to be arranged for Ernie before Ellery starts school. We all know this.”
They did all know this, but Taylor had the distinct feeling that no one in this town believed she knew it too. Taylor wondered at her mom’s fortitude. How had she lived as a widow all those years with this kind of mother-in-law?
Grandma Quinny dragged the tiny old wood-and-rust plow across the street with her and leaned it up against the building before she came in. “Mary Badel over on Shriver and 9th has a bed open in her adult foster home. Ernie can move in there.”
“That seems silly.” Taylor stood up, tall. “If he’s just going to live in a house and have care, I might as well hire a proper nurse and let him stay in his own home.” She didn’t want to slight Ellery, who had done a great job caring for Grandpa Ernie, but she did want to put Grandma Quinny in her place.
“Don’t be absurd. That’s far too expensive. Mary is very good, and the others that live there will be company for him.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want company.”
Grandma Quinny laughed again. “Now you’re just being stubborn. Of course, he does. He’s always had a home full of people and a business to run. He’s bored to tears and becoming impossible. I try to take him out at least once a month, but he’s been just plain rude the last two times.”
Considering the call Taylor had just endured, she knew her grandma was right.
“Bible Creek Care Home is better. As soon as they find out who killed those two people, it will be perfectly safe.”
A couple of thin middle-aged men in matching Hawaiian print shirts had stopped to look at the plow.
Grandma spotted them, tossed her silky floral scarf over her shoulder, and thrust herself outside, hollering, “Young men, that is not for sale!”
Taylor wished the young men, or anyone really, would come in and keep her busy so she didn’t have to fight with her grandmother.
She didn’t see herself as some kind of detective just because she had helped solve her mother’s murder, a cold case related to it, and the murder of Sissy’s aunt. But catching whoever was responsible for the deaths at Bible Creek was in her best interest, and as Taylor watched her Grandma Quinny haul the antique rust to her car, she realized she was going to get herself involved. Not just for Dayton’s sake. For her own.
Chapter Six
Reg showed up at seven-thirty.
With Belle and Grandpa Ernie settled comfortably with a pizza, some soda, and a cowboy movie, Taylor slipped away.
Reg had dressed for a night out. Taylor was impressed. It wasn’t Hudson in a seersucker jacket cute, or John Hancock in a black suit for the opera, but it was nice. Khakis. Plaid button-down. He looked like a tech guy applying for a job.
They drove up the valley to a little place just outside of Dundee and stopped at a vineyard with a restaurant. These were plentiful in their region and usually guaranteed to please.
“I know there’s nothing remarkable about a vineyard.” Reg held the door open for her, bristling with excited energy.
“No, it’s great.” Taylor had changed from her Flour Sax get up into a cotton skirt with a little swing to it and a fitted tank that matched without being matchy-matchy. She had found both in her mom’s closet.
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
The restaurant was at the top of a steep hill, perched on a long, shallow ridge. The hillsides were covered in grapevines. The narrow stone building had wide glass doors that opened to a large shop full of bottles with a tasting bar on one side. Hudson led her through to the restaurant on the other side.
Taylor froze in the entry, her breath stopped. “Wow.”
He took her hand. “I’m glad you like it.”
The restaurant seating was an open-air series of patios and decks nestled into the side of the hill, each holding only two or three tables, and every table with a mesmerizing view of not only the vine-covered hillside, but the whole rolling valley with the glistening snake of the Willamette River below.
A hostess all in black seated them on a patio three sets of stairs down the hill. Taylor took a long deep breath of the clean valley air. “How did I not know this exists?”
“It hasn’t very long, and then only from Memorial Day to Labor Day.”
“You’ve done it.” Taylor picked up the menu, and hoped the food tasted as good as it sounded. “You’ve managed to do exactly what you wanted to do. I’m amazed and impressed.”
“It’s not really much different from home.” He shrugged, a little embarrassed.
“When was the last time you got to sit on top of the world and view it all like this? I don’t ever.”
He sat up a little straighter and smiled. “Taylor, I’d really like to see more of you.”
She bit her tongue to keep herself from saying anything she’d regret.
“We get along great. We’ve been seeing each other now for a while…”
“It’s just since Mom…”
He reddened.
“It’s not you, Reg. I really like you.”
“Never mind. We haven’t even eaten yet. Order something from the expensive side, it’s vacation after all.” His face stayed red and his manner was guarded, hurt even.
Reg and Taylor had met ten years before, when he helped her with a little case regarding her friend Isaiah’s dog. They hadn’t kept in touch, her being a freshman at Comfort College of Art and Craft at that time and him being a newly-minted sheriff’s deputy. It hadn’t even occurred to her to try, as an eighteen-year-old girl. They didn’t have a long and deep back story, but they had run into each other last winter. And she did like him.
“I talked to some of the guys at the station about the situation over at Bible Creek Care Home.” He changed the subject.
Taylor shivered and sat up. Then a wave of guilt washed over her. This was a nice guy. A very nice guy. But she really did only want him for the one thing.
He seemed to spot her increased interest, and whatever hope had been left in his eye died out. “Jones, the victim they found this morning, had also been stabbed. She had been shoved in the closet. That’s all they know.”
“You don’t have to….”
“You wanted to know.”
The waitress came, and they ordered. Taylor couldn’t bring herself to order from the expensive side of the menu.
When the food eventually came, it was unremarkable. Good, but all winery restaurants were good. The conversation was stilted. He didn’t bring up the murder, and she couldn’t make herself ask. They didn’t stay for a dessert.
On the way home, he stopped at the sheriff’s office. “Give me one sec and I’ll see if they know anything else.”
“Seriously, Reg, you don’t have to.”
“I brought you all the way out here. It’s the least I could do.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “I ate dinner with you because I like your company, not to get juicy police gossip from you.”
He didn’t unbuckle. “But you aren’t interested in anything more than dinner.” He stated flatly.
“I didn’t say that.” Taylor smiled, trying to look romantic, but not feeling it.
“You didn’t have to. Is there someone else?”
She bristled. It wasn’t really any of his business. That feeling alone should have told her all she needed to know a
bout her own feelings.
After so many years with one man, dating had seemed new and fun, but it was also new and confusing. Stupid Clay for having kept her out of the game for so long.
“I’m thirty-four years old. I had my wild years a decade ago. I like you because you’re serious. You’re not a child.”
She worked to maintain her composure. There was something so unflattering about the sound of that.
“I’d like to settle down, have a family.”
“Then you should.” Taylor clenched her hands around the strap to her purse. “But I’m not there yet. There’s just been too much change in my life already.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Taylor, but you’re not a kid.”
“Now you’ve said that twice.” She pulled on the strap of her purse, but it wasn’t satisfying. She wanted to wring his neck for pointing this out. Twice.
“I thought, at your age, you’d also be interested in settling down. My sisters both had a couple of kids by the time they were thirty.”
“Good for your sisters.” Taylor crossed her arms. “We’re not in the same place, Reg, so I guess this was a lovely last dinner.”
“I guess so.”
He drove her home.
She wanted to stomp her way into her bedroom and slam the door shut.
But she was much too old for that.
Clay was a ditherer who abandoned her when she needed him most. Hudson was a jerk in the mornings, Reg…Reg thought Taylor was too old to be single and needed to settle down and have babies.
The whole mess of them could just go rot. Only John Hancock and his uncomplicated invitations to do interesting stuff in the city was worth anything.
Too bad she wasn’t in love with him.
Dating would be much easier if she was just in love with someone.
Belle was snuggled on the couch under the princess-themed nine-patch quilt Taylor had made her when she was little. It was the first twin-sized quilt Taylor had ever made. So, so, so many corners to match. It had put her off patchwork for a very long time.
Belle’s eyes were glued to her phone, and despite the blast of chilly night air that must have hit her when Taylor opened the front door, she didn’t look up.
Taylor kicked off her sandals and took the other side of the couch, tucking her feet under the edge of her blanket.
“Men are awful.”
“Cricket Jones had been dating the Chaplain.” Belle still didn’t look up from her phone.
“That’s not quite the non sequitur that it seems, is it?”
“What if her ex, or maybe his, killed them both in a fit of jealousy?”
“Then it would be safe to let Grampa Ernie move there…”
“Exactly.”
“Long night?” Taylor asked.
“Very. He refused oxygen, refused pizza. Got mad at the movie, took himself to his room, but refused to go to bed.”
“Thanks for staying with him.”
“You should just marry Clay and get it over with. Then he could move in here, I could have the apartment, and the two of you wouldn’t have to go out on dates because you’d live together again.”
“Is that what you think marriage is?” Taylor closed her eyes, but she could see that future so clearly, so comfortably. She opened her eyes again.
“Obviously not, but it’s what marriage can be, if necessary.”
“And you’ve decided it’s necessary.”
“You love him.”
“I used to.” Taylor yawned. She was exhausted. Nothing about the day had been satisfying. She was ready to lock herself in her bedroom and sleep it away.
“You still do. Love doesn’t really die, it just sort of fades to the background if not tended. And he loves you, or he wouldn’t be here still.”
“Enough, Belle. I’m going to bed.”
“I’m not wrong.”
Taylor gave her a nudge with her toe, a snuggly person’s version of a kick, got up and went to her room. She flipped on the light, and noticed a big lump in her bed
Dayton.
Fine. If this was the game Belle was playing, Taylor could play it too.
She headed down the hall to Belle’s room, but that bed was also occupied. From what Taylor could see of the head that was poking out just a bit from under the covers, Levi, the boyfriend she didn’t approve of, was here.
Taylor headed back downstairs.
“Who said you could have a boyfriend stay over?” Taylor crossed her arms and glared at her.
“I’m eighteen.”
“This is literally my house.”
“Oh, calm your tits. He’s got the flu and his parents are on vacation. I’m not going to have sex with him tonight. And if it’s anything like the flu that went around all winter, it will be at least five days of celibacy.”
“Belle, you shouldn’t be so casual about this stuff.”
“We’ve been together two years, Taylor. You want to complain about casual, what about you and that string of men you have coming around?” She yawned and stretched out on the couch.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Belle. Where am I supposed to sleep?”
“I’m sure Clay has room.”
Taylor went back to her room and changed into jammies in the dark so she wouldn’t wake Dayton. Then she grabbed a couple of blankets from the chest at the end of the hall and went back downstairs to stretch out on Grandpa’s recliner. It was like a sleepover, but where Taylor was an unwanted guest in her own house.
She definitely needed to get to the bottom of this murder situation. Too bad she had alienated her connection with the sheriff’s office.
The next day was Taylor’s day off. She woke with a crick in her neck and a kitchen under siege.
Levi, in a white terry bathrobe that had grubby cuffs, sat at her place at the kitchen table, head resting in his two hands, breathing his germs all over the jelly jar.
“Excuse me?”
“Hi.” His voice was mostly gone.
“What are you doing up?”
“I don’t really know. Where’s Belle?”
“Asleep on the couch. Get out of the kitchen. The last thing I need is my elderly grandpa to get the flu.”
“Shots.” The word came in a midst of coughs.
“Yes, he’s had the flu shot, but there’s more than one kind going around.”
He coughed again, his thin elbow bent in front of his face, an insufficient guard from his germs.
She stalked out of the kitchen and shook Belle awake. “Get your sick boyfriend back to bed, then decontaminate the kitchen before Grandpa gets up.”
Belle rubbed her eyes and then got up silently.
Taylor thundered up the stairs, not caring if her heavy footfall woke Dayton, though when Taylor saw her crumpled up in her bed, she changed her mind. She grabbed some clothes and went to the bathroom to shower and dress.
She avoided contact with the sicky and her sister and escaped the house. But she was keenly aware of the need to eat and maybe consume a lake full of coffee. On the way to Café Olé, Taylor Googled the Bible Creek Care Home to see who she could talk to at the office. Cricket dating Leon was a good place to start on her investigation, and she was ready to make some ground. Someone named Karina Wyandotte was listed as resident concierge, so Taylor decided to ask for her. She needed to ask Belle how she’d found out about Cricket and Leon, but not right now. Right now, she was too irritated.
She had finished her filling and only lightly sweetened pink concha by the time she got to the front office of the care home. The lady at the front desk was petite, maybe only five feet tall. Tiny little hands flew over her keyboard, but she had big, big hair to compensate.
“How can I help you?” she asked, without stopping in her typing.
Taylor set her paper coffee cup on the counter next to a name plaque that said, ‘Karina Resident Concierge.’ “I have some questions about resident life.”
Her hands kept at it. Taylor wondered what kind of
typing a resident concierge needed to do that was so urgent.
“Sure, go ahead.” Her eyes were on a paper held upright in a clip attached to her monitor.
“I have a grandfather who really ought to be in a memory care home. That’s something you have here, right?”
“Yes.” Still the fingers went. The light click-clacking had a bug-like quality to it that made Taylor feel itchy.
“And do those residents get the same access to, say, entertainment that the regular ones do?”
“Yes, though there are some differences.”
Taylor leaned on the counter casually. “What kind of differences?”
Karina picked her paper out of the holder and slid it out of sight. “Memory care patients can attend any Bible Creek Care Home planned event on the campus, but there are outings that we don’t take them on as we don’t have the funds to bring the appropriate staff. Also, each building hosts its own smaller events. They are planned and run by the residents, not by the business. That means the memory care wing has events that the other residents don’t go to—it’s not as though the memory care is being left out, you understand.”
“Sure, that all makes sense.” But it wasn’t getting her anything useful. “What about, say, church?”
“Memory care residents need to be signed out by someone on their approved list, but if they are, they’re welcome to do whatever they want on their own time.”
“But there’s no chapel here?”
She pursed her lips. “Listen, Taylor….”
Taylor stepped back.
“You were here when Leon died yesterday. You know we’re a family in crisis right now. I’m sorry if you still can’t decide what to do with Ernie.”
“Hold on, I didn’t mean to offend.”
“I’m sure you couldn’t help it. I’ve spent hours talking to Mrs. Quinn, and even your mom, a couple of years ago. And now you need to be convinced. You’re all a bit exhausting.”