Steps to the Altar (28 page)

He nodded, patted my shoulder, and walked away whistling, “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

“For some people, anyway,” I murmured and went out to the large room to work on the trunks.

It was only when the setting sun shined orange into one of the room’s high windows that I realized two hours had passed. I glanced at the schoolhouse clock over a row of low cabinets. Four thirty-five. My hollow-feeling stomach told me that the few miniature chicken salad sandwiches I’d gobbled down at the shower had not been enough sustenance. Though I scorned myself for doing it, I checked my cell phone for any messages. There weren’t any. Then again, what did I expect? What else did we have to say to each other?

I decided not to eat in town, afraid I’d run into either him or Del—or possibly both of them together—so I turned left on Lopez and headed away from downtown toward El Maguey, a small Mexican cafe where Jack and I often ate after we’d picked up an order at the Farm Supply. He’d loved their
pollo verde,
the only place in town that made it. I stopped eating there when he died, one more place where the memories we’d shared there were just too fresh and painful.

But right now, a big plate of
pollo verde
and some memories of easier, happier times seemed just the right antidote for my blue mood. When I passed by the old Mission Cemetery, a thought occurred to me and I made a quick U-turn on the mostly empty stretch of upper Lopez Street. I wanted to see Garvey Sullivan’s grave.

It was now dusk. Blue time, I’d heard Isaac call it—a photography term. Right as the sun went down, but before you completely lose the light. A time when the best pictures are taken. There is a lavender gauziness hovering over everything, an almost physical presence to the air that makes it easy to imagine that there is more than just the dimension we are living in, that there are, indeed, battles fought and deals made among principalities and angels and with God Himself, and that if you just stared hard enough into the haze, you’d catch a glimpse of flashing swords and dragons breathing fire.

The old Mission Cemetery was the only Catholic cemetery in San Celina. It lay across the street from San Celina’s main cemetery, where Jack and my mother were buried. I’d been to this cemetery only once as a young teenager when Elvia’s grandfather was buried.

I drove under a huge black wrought iron archway. I stopped to read the small sign posted at driver level.

Old Mission Cemetery was first located inside the Santa Celine Mission quadrangle. On August 12, 1878, a law was passed by the city council prohibiting burials within the city limits. After several extensions the present cemetery was opened on November 2, 1878. Some tombstones indicate earlier burials and these were probably moved from the original Mission location.

There are people buried here who had no tombstones. Information regarding these burials is located on the map available at the cemetery office. This map shows the location of all burial plots, with and without tombstones, by section, row and number. This includes both mausoleums. This cemetery is under the direction of Mr. Joseph Martinez of the Monterey Diocese, Monterey, California.

The cemetery itself was stark and almost treeless. Most of the grave sites were gravel covered and lined with low, concrete borders. Late afternoon shadows shaded the tall white monuments, giving the faces of the marble angels an almost living countenance.

I drove straight to the small cemetery office, hoping it would still be open and someone could direct me to Garvey’s grave. Though this wasn’t a huge cemetery, it would take me a couple of hours to search for it on my own.

“Stay,” I told Scout. “I won’t be long.”

Inside the office, a sixtyish Hispanic woman in a flowered print dress was watering a bright green philodendron in a brass planter shaped like a sleigh. She jumped when I rapped softly on the door frame.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. But is this where I get a map to the cemetery?”

She smiled at me and set down her plastic watering can. “That’s all right. I’m just not used to getting much company. I have a map right here, but the cemetery closes at dark.” She glanced out the window. “Which looks like it will be in about fifteen minutes. Can I help you find somebody?”

“No,” I said quickly, not exactly sure why. “I’m sure I’ll find who I’m looking for on the map.”

She handed me a map, an alphabetical listing of the cemetery occupants, and a one-page history of the cemetery written by the San Celina County Genealogical Society.

“I won’t throw you out,” she said. “They close the front gates, but there’s a back way out on Fair Oaks Street that’s always open.” She gestured me to the window, where she pointed out the road leading to a small side street. “I’ll be here until five or so. Let me know if you can’t find who you’re looking for.”

“Thank you. I won’t be long,” I promised. “And I have a flashlight.”

“Just be careful,” she said. “The paths are a little tricky to walk. Lots of little potholes and uneven spots.”

“Thanks, I will.”

Out in my truck, I found Garvey Sullivan’s name on the alphabetical listing. Section five, row three, grave site number one. I located it on the map, a large corner plot, and in less than five minutes, I was standing in front of the Sullivan family plot.

It was marked with a large white cross at least four feet tall with a three-dimensional lily of the valley carving trailing up the length of the cross. Two stone angels holding swords guarded each side of the cross. One angel was missing the tip of his wing. Only Garvey’s last name was carved in relief—SULLIVAN. Underneath were the names of his father, his mother, and Garvey and the dates of their births and deaths. Nothing else and no one else.

And lying at the base of the cross, one almost dead long-stem red rose.

I picked up the dry flower, and its petals were caught by the evening breeze and scattered at my feet. My heart started beating faster in my chest. Who had left this rose? Garvey Sullivan had been dead for fifty years and had had no family living here in San Celina for a long time. Someone, though, still remembered him, and I knew if I found that someone, another piece of this puzzle, maybe even the solution, might be found.

I jumped in my truck and drove back to the cemetery office. The Hispanic lady was just locking the door when I rushed up.

“I have a question,” I said.

“I’ll try to answer it,” she said, pocketing the key. “But I’ve only worked here for three years so I might not know the answer.”

“There’s a plot at the northeast end, the Sullivan family. It has a white stone cross with two angels guarding it. I found this at the base of it.” I held up the dead rose. “And I was wondering . . .”

She gave a small laugh. “Oh, the lady in black’s delivery.”

“What?” The lady in black? Could it be . . . no, it was impossible . . .

The woman laughed again. “I’m sorry. There’s not actually a lady in black who puts a rose on Mr. Sullivan’s grave. That’s just one of our little jokes here. You know, like the lady in black who visited Rudolph Valentino’s grave for so many years.”

Disappointment enveloped me. I should have realized it wouldn’t be so easy. “So, what do you mean, her delivery?”

“Well, the story is that for as long as anyone can remember, a red rose has been delivered once a month to that grave. Regular as clockwork. I could have told you that if you’d told me who you were looking for.”

I tried not to sound too eager. “Who delivers it?”

She shrugged and opened her black purse, tossing the ring of keys inside. “Mission Floral downtown is all I know. They have a couple of regular monthly orders like that. As for who pays them, I guess you’ll have to ask them.”

“Thanks, I will.”

As I suspected, they were closed by the time I drove back downtown. And they were also closed Mondays. There was not even an emergency number to call so it looked like I would have to wait until Tuesday to find out any information about this mysterious mourner. Could it be Maple? But if she’d been doing it for years, why hadn’t a police officer traced it back to her?

I spent the rest of the evening at the new house reading one of the few books I’d brought with me, a book by Gerald Haslam called
Workin’ Man’s Blues
about the history of country music in California. The phone didn’t ring once. What a difference from last year on this day when Gabe and I celebrated our first anniversary with a drive up the coast for a romantic dinner, then two nights in a cabin in Big Sur. I touched the necklace he’d given me, which I wore every day under my flannel shirts—a simple platinum horseshoe, the chain extending from the open ends of the shoe so the luck wouldn’t run out. Part of me was tempted to take it off, but it had become such an accustomed feel around my neck, I couldn’t.

The next morning after checking with Elvia to see if she needed any emotional support or errands done and hearing all was running smoothly on the wedding front, I decided to take Dove’s advice and go talk to Mac about questioning Oralee. I called his office, knowing that Monday is the traditional minister’s day off and managed to pry out of his very protective assistant that he was out at the Martinez ranch practicing his team penning.

The Martinez ranch was only a short half-hour drive away near Santa Flora. At the big ranch house, Maria Martinez, a woman I’d known for years through the Cattlewomen’s Association, directed me to the corrals out back of the house.

“Come back by for a cup of coffee when you’re through,” she said. “I want to show you my ideas for an opportunity quilt for the Women’s Shelter auction. Got some great horse fabric in Paducah last year. Besides, I just baked three cherry pies and we’d better grab us a piece before the men get in here.”

“You’ve got a deal,” I said.

Out back, a crowd of ten or so men were perched on the pipe corral’s upper rungs cheering Mac on as he and his huge bay stallion, Peck (short for Peckerwood, which, not being the most appropriate name for a minister’s horse, he’d shortened to assuage the delicate sensibilities of some of his more straitlaced church members), did their best to steer one last recalcitrant calf in with his penned buddies.

A man on the fence called, “Give it up,
padre
! The calf wins!” The men sitting on the fence cheered and hooted.

Mac yanked off his brown Stetson and slammed it against his muscular Wrangler-clad thigh.

“Dang it,” he yelled. “I’d best be keeping my day job, I guess.”

The men laughed again, two or three spit, then razzed him some more.

“Hey, guys,” I said, walking up behind them.

They all nodded and said hello. Most of them I knew by sight and name, the ag community getting smaller and smaller every year.

“Hey, Roberto,” I said, greeting Maria’s husband. “I’ve got a question for the
padre
here. Can I borrow him a minute?”

Roberto, a tall, lean Hispanic man with a salt-and-pepper handlebar mustache, said, “Why not? He obviously ain’t no kinda cowboy so hopefully he’ll be better at ministering to his flock.” A wide grin punctuated his words.

“I heard that,” Mac said, riding up to us. “You all can kiss my patootie. Peck’s too distracted by those mares over in the barn. Definitely living up to his name.”

Roberto winked at me. “I do believe patootie is minister-speak for ass. And I believe the padre may be putting his own feelings on that old horse of his. What do you think, Benni? Believe our young reverend over there is as horny as his horse?”

Mac’s widowed and celibate state had been a source of humor among his fellow ranchers since he’d returned home and taken over as First Baptist Church’s minister. He’d grown up branding and riding with most of them, so he was given no mercy despite his ecclesiastical status.

“I believe I don’t even want to go there,” I said, slipping my hands in my back pockets.

Mac took a little more kidding as he swung off Peck, telling them all what they could do with their suggestions by the curve of his upper lip.

“Oh, man, better watch out. He’s giving us the Elvis sneer now,” an old cowboy said, spitting a long brown strand of tobacco juice two inches from Mac’s size thirteen cowboy boots.

Mac looked at me, a huge grin on his face. “You know what the only trouble with
some
Baptists is? They just didn’t hold them under long enough.”

The men roared in laughter. It was obvious he was well liked by these men, many of whom attended his church on a semiregular basis.

“Walk with me,” Mac said, leading Peck away from the still laughing men. “We can talk while this old fleabag cools off.”

“This won’t take long,” I said. “Dove just suggested I talk with you about this . . . thing I’m working on.”

“No problem,” he said, looking down at me from his six-foot-four-inch height. His gray eyes were calm and soothing. “I’m done for the day anyway.”

We walked down the road toward the trucks and horse trailers. Behind us, the men cheered on Roberto as he attempted to pen the same calf that had escaped from Mac.

Mac laughed and scratched his horse’s warm neck. A former Baylor tackle who’d turned down the pros to serve a more demanding coach than any in the NFL, he’d come back to San Celina shortly after Jack died. I attended his church sporadically at first, but had become more regular in the last few months, something he teased me as being one of his more successful spiritual accomplishments.

He was a hometown boy, six years older than me, someone I’d known all my life. Someone I’d even had an adolescent crush on when I was twelve and he was eighteen. Since that time we’d both been married and widowed and I’d remarried. At thirty-six and forty-two, we’d developed an appreciation for our friendship and I could even, occasionally, think of him as a spiritual advisor. That is, when I wasn’t teasing him about past peccadillos such as the time he and my uncle Arnie, his best friend in high school, were caught by the vice-principal reselling his grandma Oralee’s beer for a substantial profit to their fellow football players.

“So, what’s up?” Mac asked.