Authors: Earlene Fowler
“Maybe after he got out of prison.”
“What?” My small shriek brought a satisfied smile to her face. I shook a finger at her. “Okay, Thelma Rook, you old gossip. You’ve known something all along. Now come clean, or I’ll be forced to bring out the truth serum.”
She gave a merry little laugh. “Oh, Benni, the look on your face was worth it. I’m being a bit facetious, really. What I’m about to tell you is pure gossip, so I hope the good Lord will forgive me.”
“C’mon, don’t torture me,” I said.
“You know, most people, even the ones who work at Oak Terrace, think that once we senior citizens check into a retirement home we’ve completely lost all our faculties. They act like we can’t see, think or hear.” Her lips grew tight in irritation. I knew what she meant. “Invisible” was the word. It had happened often since I’d started teaching the quilting class at Oak Terrace. Many of the retirement-home workers, and even some family members, would discuss the residents as if they weren’t present.
“So,” she continued, “we hear a lot of things they don’t think we hear.”
“Like what?”
“I was sitting on that sofa in the front lobby. You know, that hideous green vinyl one? These two nurses were talking with the receptionist about how they were thinking of looking for new jobs because a girl in Accounting said the books at Oak Terrace were looking a little shaky these days.”
“Shaky?”
“Money being shifted around and such. They started whispering, not thinking I could hear, but believe me, that’s one part of me that’s still working just fine. They said”—she paused for emphasis—“that
someone
in charge of a certain retirement home has a bit of a gambling problem.”
“Edwin? A gambler?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“And he’s getting the money from the retirement home,” I reasoned.
“Apparently so.” She looked at me smugly. “So you see, a nice bit of money like that endowment could come in real handy right now for our Mr. Ed.”
“No kidding,” I said, sitting back in my chair. “But murder?”
“Well, he and Brady did get along pretty well. Heaven knows, Edwin made up to him enough, but I think once Clay arrived and started helping his uncle with his finances, that endowment business was on shaky ground. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that was why Clay’s daddy sent him down here. He must have got wind of Brady’s intentions.”
Before I could react, the ladies started wandering back into the room and took their places around the quilt. As I stitched, I thought about what Thelma had just told me. Granted, if Edwin was embezzling money from Oak Terrace and Mr. O’Hara was leaving the home money in his will, Edwin might have found a way to work it so that the money he’d embezzled was covered. I wasn’t sure how all that complex accounting worked; the books I’d kept at the Harper Ranch the fifteen years I’d lived there were fairly uncomplicated. My college accounting classes and the books that came with the word processing program we’d purchased had more than sufficed. But these days miraculous things could be done with computers. A person with the necessary know-how could make numbers do the ten-step in triple time. And I’d happened to find out, during the course of working with Edwin on the Senior Citizen Prom, that his major in college had been accounting with a minor in computer science. If anyone could pull off a little piece of technical hocus-pocus, Edwin probably could.
Then again, a little voice inside me said, Clay might have decided he wanted his uncle out of the way
before
he could change his will and leave anything to the retirement home. Maybe Mr. O’Hara had decided to leave it all to Oak Terrace or to someone else.
I worried the new information like a dog digging for marrow in a fresh bone. What exactly was in that will? A lot seemed to hinge on that.
We ended the quilting session about noon with plans for the ladies to return next week. Thelma boarded the minibus last. As I helped her up the steps, she whispered, “I’ll keep my eyes and ears open and call you if I hear anything.”
“No,” I said, remembering the cool, lifeless feel of Miss Violet’s hand. “Thanks for your help, but I should never have gotten you involved. It could be dangerous. I think you should forget about it.”
With surprising strength, she pulled her arm out of my grasp and looked me square in the eye. “Now, Benni Harper, do you really think I’m going to sit around and let you have all the fun?” She turned to the bus driver. “Home, James,” she said in a regal tone. “And make it snappy. I’ve things to do.”
“Be careful,” I called after her and the bus driver gave a good-natured wave, thinking I was talking to him.
The bus pulled out of the parking lot just as Clay’s rented white car turned in. The fluttering in my stomach could have been either excitement or dread. Lately, those two sensations were beginning to feel like identical twins. I was confused about my feelings for Clay. I’d dreamed about both him and Gabe last night, a wisp of a dream I could barely remember, but it brought me awake in a trembling sweat and left me feeling vaguely aroused and vulnerable. I felt trapped somehow, as if they both had some sort of power over me.
“Hope you’re not thinking about me,” Clay said, stepping out of his car.
“What do you mean by that?” I snapped, irritated that genetics had given me the sort of face that couldn’t win a poker hand if my life depended on it.
“Just what I said. With the frown you’re wearing on that pretty face of yours, I hope it’s not me you’re thinking about.”
“It’s not. I’m just real busy. Is there something I can do for you?” The quicker I got rid of him, the quicker I could put all those discomforting thoughts out of my mind.
He leaned against the fender of the car and crossed his arms. I looked up at him, my eyes lingering momentarily on his mouth, remembering the other night, remembering seventeen years ago. “Well?”
“I do believe there is. As a matter of fact, it could be mutually satisfying for both of us.” He gave me a sleepy-lidded smile, daring me to react to his innuendo.
I pushed my bangs back impatiently and said, “Clay, what do you want?”
Unruffled, he said, “Sounds like the red in your hair is winning today, so I’ll just have my say and let you get back to work. The attic at Brady’s place has got three trunks full of old stuff—papers, books, things about San Celina County. I hear you’re affiliated with the Historical Society.”
“Yes, so?” I wondered where he’d found that out and what else he knew about me.
“So, I need to get someone to take a look at it. It doesn’t mean anything to my family and I was thinking the Historical Society might find some use for it.”
“Maybe,” I said, knowing that Dove and the other ladies in the group would cut off a finger for something like this. Mr. O’Hara had been a resident of San Celina County for almost sixty years. There had to be tons of documents and photographs that would add to the body of knowledge about the county. Normally, the idea of going through the old trunks of someone like Brady O’Hara would have fascinated me, but I suspected Clay had more on his mind than adding to the annals of San Celina history.
“Why don’t you give the Historical Society a call and see if one of the members would like to go through it with you?” I asked.
“I went by the museum and the lady at the reception desk gave me Dove’s phone number, and well ...” He looked at me with an exaggerated hangdog expression. “I never was one of her favorite people.” He balanced one heel of his elegant boots on the toe of the other, his face pensive.
Unable to resist, I softened. “No, you weren’t,” I agreed. For a moment, he was nineteen-year-old Clay O’Hara again—the boy with the long dangerous sideburns and cocky attitude who buried his head in my lap and sobbed when his dad sent a letter telling him his brown Labrador, Galveston, had been caught under a tractor’s tires and killed. “When do you want to go through them?”
He stood up, straightened his hat and grinned and I knew I’d been had. But somehow, right then, it didn’t matter. “Whenever’s the most convenient time for you.” He lowered his voice to an intimate rumble. “Maybe, if you work real hard, I’ll even buy you dinner afterwards.”
“Let’s just worry about the trunks right now,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for another dinner with him, or another of his kisses. I took a deep breath. Tomorrow was too soon. I ran through the day after’s schedule in my mind—morning with Gabe to visit Aaron and Rachel, one o‘clock, Miss Violet’s funeral. I couldn’t miss that. “How about four o’clock day after tomorrow?” I said.
“Fine. Where do you want me to pick you up?”
“I’ll meet you there.” There was no way I was going to be stuck in the boonies with Clay O’Hara and no means of escape. I hadn’t lost
all
my senses. “It’s out past the airport, near the Wheeler Ranch, right?”
“Right.” He opened the car door, then turned, a teasing squint to his warm brown eyes. “Tell me something, Widow Harper.”
“What’s that?”
“Are you really irritated at me coming to see you or just at yourself for being glad I did?” Before I could answer, he climbed in the car and started the engine.
I watched him drive out of the parking lot and wondered what I’d let myself in for. You can handle Clay O’Hara, I told myself firmly. There is nothing he can make you feel or do that isn’t totally under your control. You call the shots in this game.
That irritating little echo of Dove’s voice came back to me, as it does whenever I start feeling too arrogant:
Only if you hold the winning hand, honeybun. Only if you hold the winning hand.
11
THE NEXT MORNING, my conscience got the better of me, and when I arrived at the museum, I called Gabe.
Dialing his number, I debated with myself about how much I should tell him. I was beginning to lose track of what I knew and what I was keeping from him. Doodling question marks, triangles and hearts on my notepad, I waited for him to answer.
“Ortiz,” he answered in his dominant, chief-of-police voice.
“Hi, it’s me.”
His voice relaxed. “Finally, a voice that doesn’t want something.” A full-throated laugh rumbled pleasantly in my ear. “You don’t, do you?”
“Actually, I’m going to give you something. That is, if you promise not to get mad at me or ask me questions about my source.” I didn’t want the police questioning Thelma again and bringing attention to the fact that she knew something.
“What is it?” His voice turned stiff.
“I mean it. Promise me.”
“Benni ...”
“I mean it.”
Something resembling a growl came over the phone lines.
“Okay,” he snapped. He’d known me long enough now to know how stubborn I could be.
“It’s rumored that Edwin Montrose has a slight gambling problem.”
When he didn’t react, I continued. “Apparently it’s being said that he could have embezzled some money from the retirement home, and the endowment that I heard Mr. O’Hara was thinking about leaving to Oak Terrace could help hide Edwin’s little predicament.”
He still didn’t react and I wondered how much of this he already knew.
“Is that it?” he asked.
“Pretty much.”
“I guess it’s basically a waste of breath for me to ask who told you this.”
“Yes, basically.” I waited for him to lecture me. As usual, he surprised me.
He gave a sigh into the receiver so heavy I could almost feel his warm minty breath. “What am I going to do with you, Benni Harper?”
“I guess I’m probably the last person who knows the answer to that one. Maybe you should ask Dove.”
“She told me she gave up on you when you turned thirteen.”
“See,” I said cheerfully. “You’re in good company.”
“Just be careful. This is serious business. You aren’t—”
“A trained professional, I know, I know,” I finished. “I am being careful. I told you what I found out about Edwin. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Look,” he said, his voice weary. “Will you promise me that you’ll tell me
everything
you find out? Will you at least do that?”
I was silent, not wanting to lie, but knowing there was no way I could make that promise. Not yet. I wanted to ask if Mac had talked to him yet, but I didn’t. If he hadn’t, then I’d have to explain to Gabe why I’d even asked.
“If I think it’s relevant,” I hedged.
He blew out an angry breath and I tensed, waiting for his tongue-lashing. He fooled me again. His voice shifted into neutral. “I talked to Rachel and Aaron today.”
“How’s he feeling? The chemo’s done now, isn’t it?” I was more than happy to change the subject. “What time do we go over there tomorrow?”
“Nine o’clock. She says Aaron’s had a good couple of days. We can stay for an hour or so.”
“I wish there were more we could do to help.”
“I know.” He cleared his throat. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
“Aaron officially resigned last week.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. Or rather, I knew, but didn’t want to ask. “Well, that’s no surprise, is it?”
“The city council offered me the job.”
“That’s great.” I hesitated, wondering why he hadn’t told me before now. “I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I mean, if it’s what you want.”
He sighed again. “I don’t know what I want. Right now, I think I want to get in my Corvette and play Route 66.”
“Well, send me a postcard.” If he expected me to beg him to stay, he was talking to the wrong lady.
In the background, I heard a buzz.
“I have another call,” he said. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning about eight-thirty.”
“That’s fine. Talk to you later.”
“Right,” he said, his voice distracted and distant.
At least your conscience is clear, I told myself as I hung up the phone and glanced over the list of people I needed to call for the Historical Society interviews. Well, another little voice said, semi-clear. You didn’t tell him everything.
And why should I? I argued back. He might not even be police chief next month. And who cared anyway? What did we really have? A few kisses, a few meals, some fun times. That’s what dating was all about, right? I was free, adult and single. I could do anything I wanted. I could.