Reilly 09 - Presumption of Death (16 page)

Debbie and Nina helped her unload the food on the table. They removed the foil and found serving spoons for each dish. From the smell and look of these dishes, Jolene was more than a good cook.

“Well, just look at you,” the elderly man named George said, coming up to them. “Miss Aloha 1982.” Debbie blushed like a girl.

George Hill had gone straight over to greet a couple of the men. He was carrying a black musical-instrument case. About sixty-five, he was still puffing from climbing the short stairway up to the deck. His florid face told Nina that he wasn’t well.

Sitting down on the redwood bench that ran along the railing with the case on his lap, he clicked it open and extracted a gleaming Spanish guitar. He swung it around his neck on its leather strap and let it rest on his paunch, then ran long, surprisingly graceful fingers across the strings.

He played a few chords, warming up, grinning at Debbie.

“George, this is Ben’s guest, Nina-what was your last name, honey?”

“Balzac,” Nina said, then bit her lip.

“Balzac? What kind of name is that? Hungarian or something?” George said.

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“Maybe you could play us a Gypsy tune,” George said. “I only play country myself.”

“I can’t wait to hear you,” Nina said, smiling. She heard a crash behind her and they all turned around to see that at the other end of the deck near the grill, Britta had dropped her glass on the deck. She was barefoot, laughing, standing in the middle of the glass.

“Sam! Rescue me!” she cried. Sam Puglia stepped over the glass in his moccasins. Lifting her into his arms, he carried her a few steps, and set her down in safety.

Debbie ran into the house. She emerged moments later with a broom and began the cleanup. Darryl stooped down to pick up glass shards, putting them delicately into a plastic bag.

“Britta’s lit,” George told his wife. He looked at his watch. “Seven o’clock. Not even dark yet. This could be a record.”

“The kids are having a great time in the yard, though, aren’t they?” the woman said. “Hi there,” she said to Nina. “I’m Jolene. I’m glad you’re here. Ben needs a good friend right now. George and I have two granddaughters out there running wild in the woods tonight, Callie and April.”

“Ah,” Nina said.

“So how do you come to know Ben?” George asked. “You bein’ a Hungarian and all.”

“We went to high school together,” Nina said.

“Where? In Tijuana?” He started laughing. “They have Hungarians down there?” He started to strum. “I know a Mex song. Marty Robbins. The best country song ever written. I dedicate this to Danny, rest in peace. He used to bring his flute over and play this with me sometimes. Good old Danny. Right, everybody? Let that boy rest now.” He played a few chords, started fingerpicking surely and nimbly, then opened his mouth and started to sing in a startlingly beautiful baritone,

One little kiss and Felina, good-bye…

“‘El Paso.’ Gave away the best part,” he said. “It’s a tragic ending. Felina, sounds like a cat.”

“I never thought of that,” Jolene said. “Shall I get us something to drink?”

“And a couple of those deviled eggs Tory always brings. Save me some of your mac and cheese, don’t forget. And don’t even think about bringing me any of that crazy yuppie guacamole Megan makes, with all that spicy shit she puts in there.”

“Well, I’m sure gonna have some,” Jolene said. She winked at Nina. George started singing about how he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. To Nina’s surprise and delight, he was a terrific singer, gravelly and expressive.

Hearing the music, the liveliest thing happening in the yard, Britta came over to give him a kiss and flash her green eyes at him. He squeezed her waist. “Why does a blond wear her pants around her ankles?” he asked her.

“Tell me why.”

“To keep her ankles warm.”

Ted and Megan, who had also been drawn by the music, cringed.

“Why are men like linoleum?” Britta retaliated. “Because all you have to do is lay ’em, then you get to walk all over them for life.”

“Come on, Nina,” Jolene said. “I see you need a refill.”

An actual wine bottle bobbed in melted ice in a tin pail on the table. Nina helped herself.

Ben came over to join them. Jolene said, “Ah, sweetie,” and hugged him. Ben murmured something to her and she said, “We enjoyed him. He worked hard. It wasn’t for charity, honey. Now then, you takin’ care of yourself? You get that supper I put on your porch?”

“Sure did,” Ben said. “Thanks.” They started talking about the burial.

Nina wandered off, looking for Debbie. She found her in the kitchen on the phone. Hanging up, Debbie said, “That was Elizabeth. She wanted to stay home but I talked her into getting over here.”

“Is Elizabeth your older sister?”

“No, younger by a lot of years, only thirty. I try to look out for her. She’s shy, kind of like Ben. Intelligent, but she doesn’t understand people. She’s a conservationist. She’s going to get her Ph.D. next year.”

“That’s something to be proud of.”

“Is it ever. I never made it past high school. Married Sam, had our babies. We’ve been married twenty years. Our kids both went down to L.A. for college.”

Smiling, Nina said, “That’s also something to be proud of.”

“Elizabeth is special. You might like each other. She’ll be here in five minutes.”

“Food’s on the table!” they heard from the deck.

Jolene came in saying, “Where’s that mac dish?”

“Well, in the oven. I forgot all about it.”

“George gets grumpy when he doesn’t get his mac and cheese.” She put on two orange oven mitts and pulled a magnificent casserole with spicy peppers, tricolor chunks of melting cheese, and a crunchy paprika topping, out of the oven.

“Ow!”

“Oh, honey, you okay?”

“I’m going to get you some thicker mitts, Deb. Don’t worry about it, I’m just clumsy tonight. We’re all off-key because of Danny. I mean, we just got over the fire across the river, and now this. George’s blood sugar has been all over the place.”

“He’s happy tonight.”

“Yes, I think he’s feeling better the last couple days.”

“Britta’s a sight tonight.”

“I think Tory’s pregnant. She’s not telling yet.”

The two women went out, Nina trailing behind.

The children had crowded onto the deck, bringing noise and chaos along. A separate table had been set up for them. Jolene, at Nina’s side, said, “There’s my dolls. Callie’s got the red hair and April’s the smaller one.” The girls ran past them toward the food set up on the big table.

“Those over there are the Cowan boys. They run wild. Britta neglects ’em.” Two small towheaded boys filled up their plates. One wore nothing but a sagging diaper and tiny red rubber boots.

“Darryl and Tory have four. There’s Mikey, he’s the oldest.” Nina gave Mikey a sharp inspection. The handsome Eubanks kid with sunburned skin and light eyes was shaved to the skull like his dad in the current sports-figure style and couldn’t have been older than thirteen. He couldn’t have killed Danny or threatened Wish. Scratch the Eubanks kids, she thought.

“What about Ted and Megan? Do they have kids?”

“No. They want to have all their time for their biking and sailing and whatnot.” Nina could see that Jolene couldn’t countenance this. Jolene’s lips pursed. She shook her head. She went on, “We better get our plates before it’s all gone. I’m gonna go see what else George wants.” George was entertaining them all with his guitar.

“He’s talented, isn’t he?” Nina said. She looked all the kids over one more time. They were all too young.

“Used to play in a country-western band. He didn’t get anywhere. Then we started the nursery. Sold out and retired five years ago and we thought what with the money from that and the social security we were set. Just goes to show.”

“How so?”

“Oh, you know, investments went down the tubes. Then our daughter ran into trouble. Drugs, I don’t mind telling you. She almost lost the girls. We took ’em, George and me, and my daughter moved to Oklahoma City with her boyfriend. And now we have the girls to raise. Oh, it’s fun. I love ’em to death. But George can’t work anymore, he’s got diabetes, and he worries about how to keep us.” While she kept up this nonstop narrative, Jolene had drawn Nina to the railing.

“And then I had a stroke, nothing much, really, but it added to George’s burdens, and he finally got a bright idea, that he’d subdivide our lot. It’s deep, you know, goes back from the river two hundred feet. So we’d keep the house in front and sell the area in back. Nice lot like that would go for three, four hundred thousand. We’d be set.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

“Well, just goes to show.”

George stopped playing and beckoned to his wife. All the other men except for Ben surrounded him, plates piled high with food. In between bites, they were engaged in intense conversation, their voices low.

“Be right there, hon,” she called, and went on, “You’re gonna have a hard time believing this, but see that little old stream down there? Looks like nothing much, right? Well, this is a drought year, remember. A few years ago we had two winters in a row where it rained three months straight. The first winter, I just watched that water get muddier and faster and higher and didn’t worry at all. There had never been a flood here or close to one in the thirty-six years we’ve lived here.

“So when it happened, the fire department, the neighbors, we were all took by surprise. About 4:00 A.M. in pouring rain in February, it came over the top, where the riprap is now, and rolled down the street and wiped it out. Rolled through our lot and flooded our house, took out the garden and the fences, and rolled like the Mississippi down the next street. Took out that street, houses and all. Believe it? We had to evacuate for two days. The Red Cross set up a tent by the bridge and made free dinners and we all got tetanus shots. Took us six months to fix up the house, and the other street? Took them the whole year.”

“Amazing,” Nina said.

“Kind of thing supposed to happen once in maybe a hundred years. But the next year it happened again. Believe it? It did. This time it took out the bridge. We were all ready to evacuate, we had our stuff out of the house, so it wasn’t quite so bad as the first nasty surprise. Since then, that river has been sleepy as a baby. Probably never will get loco like that again.”

“Jolene! You get me some food!” George hollered over the din. The singing over, and whatever conversation they had going interrupted by their frequent trips to the buffet for food, the other men dissolved into the crowd.

“Comin’! So anyways, we thought we were back to normal except for that puke-producing riprap the county put in and the new bridge. So George started getting ready to sell the Back Acre, that’s what he calls it. Guess what happened. The county told us we couldn’t do it.”

“No.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jolene folded her arms. “Right after the Green River development got approved. Some new commission passed an ordinance after the floods. George and I heard nothing about it until it happened. We sure didn’t see it coming. The new law says you can’t build, you can’t remodel, you can’t do anything within two hundred feet of the river. We can’t subdivide.”

Nina said, “Were you home when the model home across the river burned down?”

“It happened in the middle of the night. I heard the fire trucks and looked out and saw the smoke, so I woke George up and we went out to see what was the matter. Just about the whole block got up to watch it. I hate to say it, but I was glad to see it burn. And I’ll tell you something else. I hope they decide not to rebuild. For thirty-six years I’ve come out my front door and seen a green hill and willows. I don’t want to see fancy houses that somebody else got to build when we couldn’t.” Her mouth was set. “I’d be full of hate and bitterness, watching George and the girls struggling because we couldn’t do the same.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Trust in the Lord. What else can we do? Well, I know you’d like to talk to me some more, honey, but maybe later, okay?”

Jolene gave Nina a pat on the arm and wended her way toward her husband, and Nina headed toward the food, thinking that she wouldn’t want to come up against Jolene in court. That woman would be a huge hit with juries.

The adult neighbors sat down at their table, and Nina noticed they fell naturally into groups.

On the left end of the table, the Hills, the Eubankses, and Ben Cervantes.

On the right end, Ted and Megan Ballard, David and Britta Cowan.

In the middle, Sam and Debbie talked to both sides.

Even the food had been set on the table with some invisible demarcations. On one side, Jolene’s “mac” dish along with Tory’s deviled eggs and a big bowl of potato salad; in the middle, platters of ribs and chicken; on the right, in front of Ted and Megan, the Thai and Greek dishes, green salad, fruit salad, and soy milk in cartons. The liquor was similarly split into beer on the left and wine on the right, except for the whiskey glasses in front of Sam and Britta.

Sitting down next to Ben, Nina filled up her plate with starchy food. She pushed her wineglass back and Ben opened a bottle of Dos Equis for her.

Surprise, surprise, Jolene was holding forth at this end of the table, while George shoveled mac and cheese into his mouth and Darryl, Tory, and Ben listened with consternation.

“
And
she said she saw one of the arsonists pull into Siesta Court and drop the other one off!”

“The Cat Lady’s nuts, though. You can’t take somebody like her seriously,” Darryl said. “Remember when Debbie invited her to one of the parties and we all had to listen to her Twelve Points?”

Ben said, “I didn’t know she was that definite about what she saw.”

“Yessir, she was buying cat food at the market-they must give her a discount-and that’s exactly what she told me. She said she doesn’t know who it was but she thought it was men in the car.”

“But it wasn’t Danny,” Ben said uncertainly. “The kid, Danny’s friend Wish, says he and Danny were just trying to catch the guy.”