Authors: Earlene Fowler
“I’d better get back to the museum,” I said, stuffing empty wrappers in the white bags. “I don’t have much time left to finish this exhibit.”
“Just a minute, I want you to see something.” He shuffled through the papers he’d stacked to the side while we ate. He held out the fax containing Clay’s criminal record. “I thought you’d like to take a look at this one more time.”
“What do you mean?” I hoped my face didn’t look as guilty as my voice sounded.
The edges of his mouth turned down in a jaded look. I grabbed the fax, skimmed it and shoved it back across the desk. “So?”
“Since you insist on seeing him, I just want you to know who you’re dealing with.”
“So he has a bit of a temper. I knew that. That doesn’t mean he would kill a couple of harmless old people. These were probably barroom brawls. Big difference between that and murdering senior citizens.”
Gabe propped his elbow on his chair arm, rested his chin in his hand, and regarded me with unblinking eyes. The question in them was the same one in my mind, though I wasn’t about to say it out loud. Why was I defending Clay? What possible difference could it make to me one way or another? For an uncomfortable moment, I felt seventeen again. Maybe the answer lay there somewhere. Of course, the scenario was a bit different this time. I was a grown woman and Gabe definitely wasn’t my father.
“I gotta go,” I said, tossing the bags in the trash and heading for the door.
“Benni—” His serious tone stopped me, my hand frozen on the doorknob. Reluctantly, I turned my head around.
He sat forward in his chair and picked up a pencil, moving it back and forth through his fingers. “There’s no reason for me to tell you this.”
I let go of the door and faced him. He continued playing with the pencil. “Well?” I said impatiently.
“Our source in Colorado says Clay and his father might inherit a substantial part of Mr. O’Hara’s estate.”
“You don’t know what’s in Mr. O’Hara’s will? I thought the police had access to that sort of information.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t until it’s probated and made public record. And that could take months or years depending on how long his attorney chooses to hold things up.”
“What does Clay say?”
“Obviously, he’s not talking.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Even if he does inherit, that’s just circumstantial evidence.”
“True.” He pulled at his mustache and frowned. “But we’re waiting for more information about how badly they could use that money and how quickly they need it. As you well know, cattle ranches aren’t the best way to make a living these days. Circumstances may have compelled your Mr. O’Hara into deciding he couldn’t wait for his uncle’s natural death.”
“But why would he kill Miss Violet? That doesn’t make sense. There were plenty of opportunities for him to kill his uncle without making it a double murder. Why would he risk that?”
“Good questions. And ones
I
will find the answers to, not you.”
“I’ll ask you one more time. Is Clay the only suspect?”
“No.” He lifted his chin slightly.
“Who are the others?”
He laughed sarcastically and stood up. “I’m not that crazy. I’m having a hard enough time keeping you away from Clay O’Hara. You think I want to make my job even more difficult? Now be a
muchacha buena
and go back to the museum.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Be a good girl? Really, Gabe, let’s not try for the sexist Hall of Fame here.”
“Sweetheart, I was just kidding,” he said, coming around the desk and putting his arms around me. I pulled out of his embrace and reached for the door. He held it closed with the palm of his hand. I briefly contemplated a wrestling match, but he outweighed me by over eighty pounds. Resting my hand on the doorknob, I stared at the corded muscle under the dark hair on his forearm and tried to ignore the urge to touch my lips to it.
“Benni,” he said. “Have a heart. Let’s not argue anymore.”
I opened my mouth, ready to give another smart retort, when a peppery knock rattled the door.
“Just a minute,” he called out, his hand still flat on the door.
I twisted the knob and pulled lightly. “Okay, Tarzan, you can cut the chest-beating routine any time now.”
“Not until we’ve hammered this out or you’re at least smiling.”
I glared up at him. “Isn’t that just like a man? Now that
you’re
ready to talk, I’m supposed to snap to it. Well, guess again, pal.”
“I don’t have any appointments. I can stand here all day.”
The phone on his desk buzzed.
“Looks like your adoring public is calling,” I said smugly. “You’d better let me go before your employees get the idea you’re ravishing me in here or something.”
He bent his head, brushed his lips across the soft, vulnerable spot just under my ear and whispered, “
Querida,
you don’t know ravishing yet.”
The rasp of his mustache against my neck caused my stomach to lurch and a nervous laugh gurgled from my throat.
“That’s better,” he said, releasing his hand.
“Friday, your chauvinism is beyond compare,” I said, irritated at my body’s swift response to him. “And don’t overestimate your abilities.”
“Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.”
I groaned. “Give me a break.”
“I’ll call Rachel tonight and see what would be a good time to go and see Aaron,” he said, walking back to the buzzing phone, a confident grin under his thick mustache. “I’ll let you know.”
“Pardon me,” I said, pushing past the patrol officer standing outside the door, his face pink with embarrassment. Then I slammed it loudly behind me. Gabe’s laugh sounded through the thick oak.
Miguel’s sour look hadn’t changed in the last hour. “Did you kiss and make up?” he asked. “Can I call Maintenance and stop construction?”
“You know, you’re being awfully cocky to someone who could tell stories to your macho buddies about your rabid fear of lizards, when you really stopped wetting the bed, what your father’s favorite nickname for you is—
mi pollo chiquito....
”
“Ah, Benni,” he said, glancing around to see if anyone heard, his cheeks a rosy nutmeg. “I was just kidding.”
“That seems to be the operative word around here today,” I said.
As I walked back out to the truck, needles of guilt still pricked at my conscience because of the information I was keeping from Gabe. But as much as he was beginning to mean to me, I couldn’t imagine a permanent relationship with someone who insisted on keeping me out of a whole section of his life. It was simply a matter of trust. Was I in love with him? Who could tell? The last time I fell in love I was sixteen years old. My emotional feelings for Gabe felt entirely different from those I remember experiencing when I first met Jack as an adolescent, though my physical reactions were embarrassingly similar. All I knew was that at thirty-four, relationships were certainly more complex. Of course, I don’t know why that should surprise me, everything else was too.
Since, as usual, I couldn’t figure out my personal life, I decided to get back to the museum and catch up on some work. I’d had three new assistants in the last two months, none of whom lasted longer than two weeks. We could only afford to pay minimum wage for the twenty-hour-a-week position and the students who had tried the job came to the astute conclusion that McDonald’s or Taco Bell was easier and less responsibility. My preferred method of supervision was to give my assistant a job list for the week and have the work completed without any further prompting from me. That proved to be too complicated for most college students. I was almost done with the cross-stitch exhibit, but there were piles of paperwork to catch up on, a maintenance check on all the equipment, more beggary letters to compose and send and a stack of forms that needed to be filled out for the city concerning the earthquake safety of the museum. That didn’t even include keeping everything clean and supplies ordered. Desperation for an assistant was rapidly overtaking me.
While driving past the museum’s nearest neighbor, the monolithic silver building of the Coastal Valley Farm Supply, I automatically searched the crowded parking lot for familiar ranch trucks. At the San Celina Feed and Grain Co-op across the street, I spotted the white GMC pickup of Daddy’s best friend, Mr. Allison. He was probably sitting on one of the hay bales in back, spitting from his cheekful of Copenhagen into an empty Coke can and complaining about the low price his Angus calves were fetching this year. It seemed a lifetime ago when my weekly trip to one or both of those places was as much a part of my life as the daily flossing of my teeth.
The museum’s gravel parking lot was packed with cars. Most of the artists were over the post-Christmas doldrums and gearing up for the Mardi Gras Street Festival where the co-op would set up a large crafts booth. The festival-loving Central Coast was a lifeline for most of the artisans, bringing in throngs of tourists and locals to purchase their work. In the co-op studios, every corner bustled with some sort of activity—the buzz of conversation and machines sounded almost as comforting to me as the sound of lowing cattle.
“You’ve got a visitor,” Malcolm said. He switched off the spinning pottery wheel and twisted around to face me. “Actually, I think he’s an applicant.”
“Oh, that’s ... great,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic and wondering what Cal Poly’s job placement office had sent over this time.
“Your excitement is overwhelming,” he said with a chuckle. He picked up a stained rag and started wiping the slick clay from his hands.
“Well, you have to admit, things have been a bit erratic for me in that department lately.”
“Cheer up, this may be your lucky day.”
“Yeah, right.” I headed toward the long hallway that leads past the woodshop and storage rooms, humming “I Feel Lucky” by Mary Chapin Carpenter, hoping my positive attitude would influence fate. Passing by the open door of the woodshop, I waved to the three men cutting out animal-shaped clock faces for the tole painters. The saws and sanders buzzed in a high-pitched symphony that smelled as sweet and full of possibilities as the first day of summer.
Ahead of me, my office door loomed. Behind it could be a prize or a dud. I was beginning to wonder if the lady at the placement office had a grudge against me. Of course, the less than enthusiastic response to the job might have something to do with the fact that my last assistant was killed on the premises. I opened the door and looked at the young man sitting in the visitor’s chair in front of my desk, cradling a camera in his lap.
“Todd,” I said, surprised. “I ... Can I help you?” I looked around my small office. “There was supposed to be someone here from the college for the assistant’s job. Did they leave?”
“It’s me,” he said, looking down at the floor, his fingers caressing the Nikon. “I want it.”
“Oh.” I sat down in my chair, a bit taken aback. “I thought Ramon said you worked with your grandfather. We need someone who can work at least twenty hours a week. Sometimes on the weekends. Can you manage two jobs and your classes too?”
“Yes,” he said, studying his heavy black boots. One foot moved up and down in a nervous hammering.
I waited for him to elaborate. I liked Todd, but I didn’t need someone who’d overfilled his plate just because he needed money for some new lens or something.
His bottom lip jutted out in that half-defiant, half-ashamed look adolescent boys get when forced to ask an adult for a favor. “My grandfather’s store, it’s ... it’s not doing so good. He can’t really afford to pay me.”
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. “That’s too bad,” I said. “I guess a lot of businesses are having trouble these days.”
He exhaled sharply and tossed his long silky hair. “It’s not that he’s stupid or a bad businessman or anything. It’s just that ...” He paused, his Adam’s apple moving convulsively. “My mom’s and grandmother’s funerals cost a lot of money. We ... uh ... didn’t have insurance and stuff.” He looked down and started picking at the red, raw cuticles on his brown chemical-stained fingers.
“Your grandmother?” I said, confused. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize ...”
He didn’t look up. “She had a heart attack a couple of months before my mom ... well, you know.” He brought a forefinger up to his mouth and chewed at a piece of skin.
I studied the doodles on my desk blotter, in a quandary about what to do. My heart said, Give him the job and pick up any slack he can’t handle; my head said, He’s a nice kid, but you can’t save the world and you don’t have time for this.
While I argued with myself, he avoided my eyes and played with the zoom lens on his Nikon. I knew it was hard for a boy his age to tell anyone his personal problems or to ask for help. I also knew I was taking a chance hiring him. But how could I say no? Maybe he would be a better employee than any others I’d had simply because he needed the job so badly.
“Okay,” I said, sitting forward. “We’ll give it a try. Do you know how to use tools at all?”
“Sure,” he said, his face brightening for the first time since I walked into the office. “I’m real good at fixing things.”
I stood up and walked him to the door. “Come by tomorrow at ten o’clock and I’ll give you your first week’s assignments.”
“Thanks. You won’t regret it, I swear.” He gave me a grateful smile and loped off down the hallway.
“I sincerely hope not,” I said under my breath. Getting in the middle of someone’s family problems was the last thing I needed right now. With Mac and Clay and their complicated positions in the murders of Mr. O’Hara and Miss Violet and with the cross-stitch exhibit due to open in the next two weeks, not to mention those chapters for Dove I still needed to research and write, or my tennis-match relationship with Gabe, I didn’t need an emotionally upset teenage assistant. I was seriously considering Elvia’s suggestion to post the job in the senior citizen center next to the library. She’d gotten two of her most dependable employees that way. My only hesitation was that the heavy lifting required by the job might prove to be too much for a person in their sixties or seventies. But at this point, if Todd didn’t work out, I might reconsider the seniors and work out something with the men in the co-op about the heavy lifting.