Irish Chain (24 page)

I watched him climb into his little car and pull slowly out of the parking lot. Driving back to my house, an intense weariness overtook me that I recognized as grief. Only unlike when I grieved for Jack, this feeling had no center, no one thing to focus on. All I knew was after visiting Aaron this morning, fighting with Gabe, attending Miss Violet’s funeral and seeing Mr. Morita’s sorrow, I felt as if there wasn’t one single thing in the world to feel happy about. I thought about giving Clay a call at his hotel and telling him to just ship the trunks to the Historical Society and call me sometime, like in a year or so. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and stay there forever. While changing back into jeans and a long-sleeved white tee shirt, I called the museum to see how things were going and whether Constance had left any messages for me. Since the exhibit was done, but wouldn’t open until next week, and I was caught up on my paperwork, I didn’t feel a need to go in. Vegetating seemed a good alternative. I picked up a grape Tootsie Pop that had somehow appeared on my messy coffee table and turned on the television to CMT, the twenty-four-hour country music video station. They were taking call-in requests for “cryin’, lovin’ or leavin’ ” songs. After my fifth “leavin’ ” song, I decided anything was better than sitting there crying in my chili, even wrangling with Clay O’Hara. At least it would take my mind off things. But first, since I hadn’t seen her at the funeral, I would go by Oak Terrace and check on how Oralee was getting along. You’re not being nosy, I told myself. She’s your friend, you would do this even if she didn’t have something you wanted to know.

The afternoon air had the crisp smell and refreshing translucence that always seemed to precede a rain storm on the Central Coast. Off to the north, smoky gray storm clouds seemed to boil over the horizon, bubbling our way. The thought of stormy weather cheered me. Though we’d had plenty of rain this year, my psychic rain barrel wasn’t full yet. A stormy night next to a cozy fire was just what I needed. My heart sank as the picture blossomed in my mind. I didn’t have a fireplace, but Gabe did. Suddenly, I wished for sunny weather.

Oak Terrace’s hallways were as busy and crowded as usual, the murders of six days ago already old news. The unending job of feeding and caring for the aged and infirm was like tending a newborn child or ailing animal; in the midst of tragedy, life must go on. I was turning down the west wing of the Magnolia building, heading toward Oralee’s new room, when I literally rammed into Edwin’s chest bone. His hands enveloped my shoulders, holding them a little too long after realizing they were female.

“Benni!” he said in an overly delighted voice.

“Edwin.” I pulled back and started to move around him. “Can’t talk. I’m on my way to visit ...”

“You’re just the person I wanted to see,” he said, his voice as smooth and appealing as a glob of Vaseline. “I have something for you.” He flashed an intimate smile. If he’d had a handlebar mustache, I swear he would have twirled it.

“What?” I asked suspiciously.

“Oh, no,” he said, his tone playful. “You’ll just have to come to my office and see for yourself.”

Where do men like Edwin come from? And who trains them? I gave him an irritated look. “Look, Edwin, I’ve got someplace to be at four o’clock. I don’t have much time. Is this something that absolutely has to be taken care of today?”

“Only if the museum wants its money.” His expression turned smug. He knew he had me. I took my job with the museum and co-op seriously and would even brave his slimy little lair if I thought it contained something that belonged to us, especially a monetary something.

“Okay, I’ll be there in a little while,” I said reluctantly. “Whatever it is better be quick though. My appointment is very important.”

The door to Oralee’s room was closed, but George Jones’s cajoling voice seeped through the thin wood veneer. Oralee’s curt voice granted permission to enter. The room’s decor was as plain as Oralee herself, with pictureless walls covered in a tan flame-stitch wallpaper and rust-colored curtains on the one window. The bed closest to the door was empty, neatly covered with one of the institution’s dark brown bedspreads. Its matching metal nightstand, bare of any personal items, established the fact that currently Oralee was the sole occupant of the room. She sat in a cushioned maple rocking chair next to her bed, which was covered with a calico Log Cabin quilt; a crocheted afghan rested neatly at the foot. She wore a rose velour jogging suit and white quilted house slippers. A red photo album rested in her lap, and next to the chair her stained Acme work boots waited for one last trip to the barn. She slowly raised her head from studying the album when she saw me.

“I knew you’d be comin’.” Her hands gripped the album so tightly, they strained against the skin of her large knuckles, like hard seeds threatening to burst from old fruit.

Since there were no other chairs in the room, I sat on her bed and faced her. “Have you talked to Mac?”

“Yes.” She averted her eyes when I looked directly at her. “He’s a good boy. I never meant for him to get involved.”

“You realize what he did was against the law. He could go to jail. At the very least, it could cost him his job and his reputation.”

“Couldn’t be helped,” she said, in a voice as sharp as a snapped wishbone. “I told him he didn’t have to. Was his choice. We all got to live with our choices.”

I took a deep breath, not wanting to get angry, but feeling it start to smolder inside me. “Do you realize what kind of a position this puts me in? Or Mac for that matter?”

“Can’t be helped,” she stubbornly repeated.

“Oralee, what was it that Mac took and destroyed? I have to know. It’s not fair that I don’t know.”

Her eyes bore straight into mine, and I thought I saw a glint of fear there. “No.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper. “It stops here. Even Mac doesn’t know.”

“He doesn’t?” I leaned back, surprised.

“No.”

“But he told me ...”

“He was trying to protect me. He brought what it was to me, and I got rid of it. He didn’t do nothing wrong. It was me all along, and I’ll tell that to that policeman of yours if I have to.”

“Oralee, just tell me it doesn’t have anything to do with Mr. O’Hara’s and Miss Violet’s murders and I swear I’ll let it go. Just tell me that.”

Oralee lowered her head and studied the photograph album in her lap intently. “Justice was done” was all she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She raised her head, her face remote. “Just let it be, Benni.”

“One thing, Oralee, I just want to ask one more thing.” Sissy’s story. I had to find out what really happened that night.

“No!” Her voice barked with the same vigor and command I’d remembered as a teenager. She looked back down at the album, turning a page slowly. “Now, go on with you.” I’d known her long enough to know when there was no arguing with her.

I turned when I reached the doorway. “I hope it’s worth it, Oralee. Whatever it is you’re hiding. I hope it’s worth all the people it’s hurting.”

She never raised her head.

“This better be good,” I muttered, walking toward the administrative offices and Edwin. They were located at the front of the building, just off the newly decorated lobby. It was the one place in Oak Terrace where the throat-narrowing smell of ammonia and alcohol was not present. Various shades of kelly-green and peach decorated the outer offices. The pseudo-adobe walls displayed “original” oil paintings of crashing waves and neat, Disney-like fishing boats, the type of art you’d find at swap meets for $29.95. No one sat behind the metal secretary’s desk. Next to the dark green blotter, peach silk fuchsias in a cheap white vase danced gently from the air conditioning. I started to knock on the partially opened door of Edwin’s office, when his voice, frantic and with a touch of desperation, stopped my hand in midair.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll get it.” There was a long silence. “Just give me ...” Another long silence, punctuated by his voice growing high with anger. “I told you it was ...” Then, “Yes, I remember.” His voice lowered. “Yes, I know. I’ll take care of it.” He hung up.

I stood quietly for a minute, letting some time pass, so he wouldn’t think I’d overheard his conversation. I was studying one of the ocean scenes, trying to fit the words I’d just heard to anything connected with gambling, when his door flew open.

“Edwin!” I said, jumping back.

“Benni!” he said, just as surprised. “How long have you been there?”

“I just walked up,” I said quickly. “What do you have for me?”

“For you?” He jerked his head back, eyebrows bunched together in question.

“The museum,” I clarified. “You said you had something for the museum.”

“Oh yes, in here.” I followed him into his large, mostly bare office. It was decorated in the same shades of peach and green as his secretary’s, but the pictures had a Santa Fe K-Mart look to them. A personal computer sat on one side of his desk and piles of papers were spread all over the desktop. Was somewhere among them proof that he really was embezzling funds? He rummaged through the papers on his desk, pulled out a long pink check and handed it to me.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Residents’ council decided the leftover money from the prom should be donated to the co-op. It’s not much but .. .” His voice trailed off as he turned away from me. I watched his long fingers comb feverishly through the papers, realizing anything he had done would probably be so deeply buried within the bowels of that computer it would be entirely outside the realm of my amateur-sleuthing abilities. After a minute or so, he looked up, perplexed. “Is there something else?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I guess this about wraps up the prom business.” I paused for a moment, then decided to take a chance. “Edwin, is everything okay?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice going suddenly sharp and high. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” I said, backing up, sorry I’d asked. “You just seemed a bit preoccupied.”

“Running a retirement home isn’t easy,” he said, jutting his chin out belligerently. “Everyone thinks there’s all the money in the world—we need new chairs for the TV lounge, we need a filtering system for the drinking water, we want more variety in the meals. We want, we want, we need. Where do they think that money comes from? This is not a charity. The owners expect the place to make a profit every month and when we don’t ... How am I supposed to make the dollars stretch? These people’s Social Security checks don’t even begin to cover it all. Everyone thinks we have all the money—” He stopped. “Sorry,” he said abruptly, his cheeks turning ruddy. “Bad day. I shouldn’t be boring you with my problems.”

“It’s all right,” I said, for the first time feeling a little sympathy for him. But, I thought, that doesn’t begin to answer the questions I still have about you. Edwin seemed too wimpy to actually kill anyone, no matter how desperate his situation, but then again, the manner which both Mr. O’Hara and Miss Violet were killed was pretty cowardly. Edwin probably would never attack a man his own age, but an elderly man who had something he needed and an old woman who was a witness? People had certainly been killed for less.

“Well, I have that appointment,” I said. “Thanks for the check, Edwin. Hope the rest of your day goes better.”

He waved at me distractedly and went back to pawing through the papers on his desk.

I drove through town toward my meeting with Clay, engaging in the same mental debate that had plagued me from the beginning of the murders: What should I tell Gabe? though right now it seemed like a moot point. And what was there to tell really? An ambiguous story about a doctor’s mysterious house call fifty years ago, an equally ambiguous overheard conversation between Edwin and an unknown person, Oralee’s cryptic statement about justice being done. What was any of that, anyway? A bigger mystery than any of it was whether what I did to protect Mac and Oralee was right. Would I do it again, knowing the outcome? I had never felt so divided in my loyalties or so confused about the matter of right and wrong. Pulling out on the open highway, heading south of San Celina toward Mr. O’Hara’s house, the argument about trust Gabe and I had this morning on the ride to Aaron’s floated back to me.

“There’s no such thing as partial trust,” he’d said, shifting into fourth gear and driving twenty miles over the speed limit as he always did.

“I agree,” I answered, gripping the door handle.

“So, why don’t you trust me?”

“The same reason you don’t trust me.”

He punched the accelerator. The throttle opened and the car jumped forward. We passed a Camaro doing at least seventy-five miles an hour. “I do trust you.”

“Right,” I said. “That’s why we have all those wonderfully intimate conversations about your work. Have you ever gotten a speeding ticket?”

“I trust you with things that are your concern. And no.”

“That’s exactly how I feel,” I said. “And you should.”

He glanced over at me, his face grim. “You seem to forget, Benni, that anything to do with these murders is my concern. Just because we’re ... friends, doesn’t mean charges can’t be brought against you.”

“For what?” I said indignantly.

“Obstructing justice, for one thing. Interfering in an official police investigation, for another.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek, wondering how much he knew. “I’m not obstructing anything, and even if I were, you’re telling me you’d bring charges against me? Some ... friend.”

He tightened his fingers around the steering wheel, probably wishing it was my neck. He answered with the low, dispassionate voice he uses whenever he’s right on the edge of losing his temper. “I don’t bring charges, Benni, the DA does. Why are you fighting me on this? What could possibly be that important?”

I played with the catch to my seat belt and didn’t answer.

“Why can’t you trust me?”

“I do trust you,” I protested one last time before we stopped in front of Aaron and Rachel’s house.

But I didn’t. Not entirely. Not in the way I had trusted Jack. I had to admit that to myself when I pulled off the highway and drove up the circle driveway in front of Mr. O’Hara’s Victorian house. Trust was something that took a willingness to risk, to open yourself to hurt, something Gabe and I both had problems with. What was it I wanted from him? More enthusiasm about staying in San Celina, I suppose. More of a role in his life than just someone he ate with occasionally, teased and kissed. More than just a quick tumble in the old symbolic hay loft. I couldn’t help but compare our relationship to what Jack and I had, though I knew that was unfair and not unlike Gabe comparing me to every woman he’d ever made love to, a troubling thought that had crossed my mind more than once. Not that it mattered anymore. We were officially broken up, though I wasn’t sure if we were ever officially together. Was this what dating was all about? Though I would hesitate admitting it to anyone, I couldn’t see the point. You get to know someone’s favorite foods, the things they like to watch on TV, what their tongue feels like, for cryin’ out loud, just to wave good-bye, tell them to have a nice life, at the end of six or seven months? And then you do it again, over and over, until what? You found the man of your dreams or you were too old for men to want anymore? It seemed like such a waste of time. There had to be a more efficient, less emotionally exhausting way for people to get together. Then something Jack once said came back to me just as clearly as if he were sitting across the seat from me. “Benni, honey, for someone who jokes around as much as you do, you sure take life seriously.” Maybe he was right. Maybe I should just relax, and as Dove says, put my quarter on the table and play the cards dealt me. Then again, this was the advice of a woman who has been known to hold an extra ace or two in her overall pocket.