I looked at Letty. “I think you may have the right idea,” I said slowly, “but I need to think about it. I’m getting married this Sunday, and I’m pretty busy.”
Fannie gave a short laugh. “That’s the understatement of the year,” she said to Letty. “China already has more on her plate than she can say grace over.” She frowned, and I knew she was sorry that she’d allowed Letty to inflict herself on me. “Letty, if I’d known what you intended to ask, I wouldn’t have—”
“It really won’t take much time,” Letty said, almost desperately. “Maybe all you have to do is ask her and she’ll tell you. Her name is—”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to know who she is unless I’m going to do something about it.” The way things turned out, it was a dumb response, and if Ruby had been there, she would have given me a sharp kick in the shins. But Fannie was right. I already had too much to do without getting involved in Letty’s problem, and I wanted to make that point.
Letty put her hand on my arm. Her fingers were like claws, and there was an enormous power and passion behind her
Please.
“Let me think about it overnight,” I said.
So that was how we left it. I got her phone number and promised to call her in the morning. Fannie gave me a hug, hiked up her running shorts, and the two of them drove off. With a sigh of relief, I headed for the kitchen. Constructing designer sandwiches for a pair of ravenous kids is hardly the world’s most demanding job, but after that session with Letty, I was ready to throw myself into it, heart and soul.
Throughout my life, I have lived in a number of apartments, condos, and houses and cooked in kitchens that ranged in size from microscopic to midget. This kitchen, however, has enough sink and counter space to build a twelve-course dinner, with room left over for a large fridge, a scarred pine table that seats eight comfortably, my beloved Home Comfort gas range (which is old enough to qualify for Social Security), and an oak rocking chair beside a floor-to-ceiling window, where Howard Cosell can lie and grind his teeth over the mockingbirds diving for bugs in the grass. I sighed as I got out sandwich fixings and a head of cabbage, thinking with regret that there would soon be another kitchen in my life. But no sooner than January, the lawyer in me vowed, no matter what the Tuckers had up their devious sleeves. In the meantime, I would enjoy every minute of this one.
So I happily shredded cabbage for cole slaw, arranged cold cuts, and sliced Swiss cheese and huge Big Boy tomatoes and a sweet yellow onion the size of a grapefruit, humming “Whistle While You Work” and refusing to think about rascally husbands, ruined marriages, and murder. Until Brian and Melissa walked in and put the gun on the table in front of me.
“We didn’t touch it, honest,” Brian said earnestly. “Except with the stick, that is.”
“That’s how we carried it,” Melissa elaborated. “With the stick in that trigger thing. We didn’t want to mess up the fingerprints. If there are any.”
“The trigger guard,” Brian said importantly, reaching down to pet Howard Cosell, who had come away from the window to see what was going on. “Hi, Howard Cosell, you good old dog.” He headed for the phone, leaving a trail of muddy footprints on the floor.
“I was afraid it would go off,” Melissa told me, her face sober. “Brian said it wasn’t loaded, so it wouldn’t. But we were careful anyway.”
“Wasn’t cocked,” Brian corrected her, dialing. “I could tell by looking at the hammer.”
“Right,” Melissa said respectfully. “Cocked. Brian knows all about guns.” She shrugged out of her backpack, and I saw that she was muddy to the knees. Howard Cosell abandoned Brian and came over to sniff Melissa’s jeans. “We kinda thought,” she said, “that it could be the same gun that killed that guy in the garage. That’s why we didn’t want to mess up the fingerprints. We didn’t want anybody to see us, either, just in case.”
I stared at the gun—a .32 Beretta caked with mud—where it lay beside half a head of cabbage, an onion, and a plate of sliced tomatoes. I could see tiny dried blood spatters on the top of the barrel. “Where did you find it?” I asked.
“On the bank of the creek,” Melissa replied. She frowned. “There was somebody who saw us, though. A woman in a car. She was watching.”
“Hey, listen, Dad,” I heard Brian say.
Dad? I whirled around. “Brian, I think you’d better let me talk to—”
“Hey, man,” Brian said into the phone. “Melissa and me, we like found this pistol and kinda thought maybe it’s the one you’re looking for. You know, the one that killed that guy you and China didn’t want to talk about last night.”
I could hear McQuaid’s explosive
What?
from where I stood.
“Yeah,” Brian said. “Cool, huh? Anyway, we brought it home. It’s here on the table. What time are you coming for supper?”
Melissa tilted her head, regarding me with a worried look. “What happened to your nose?”
“A door,” I said to her. To Brian, I said, “He’s not coming for supper. He’s working late.”
Melissa stopped looking at my nose, reached into her pack, and pulled out a lidded quart jar. It was filled with dirty water and a dozen greenish creatures with big eyes and long tails. “Tadpoles for the snakes,” she explained, setting the jar on the table. “They look like sperm, don’t they? With eyes.” She dove back into her pack and came up with a small wasp’s nest. “Don’t worry,” she told me reassuringly. ”There aren’t any grown ones in there. Just a bunch of grubs.”
“Okay,” Brian said into the phone. “I’ll tell her. See ya.” He hung up.
“And this,” Melissa said with pleasure, “is a present for
you.”
She pulled out a bread wrapper filled with muddy leaves and handed it to me. “It’s mint. We found it growing wild, where we found the gun. A great big patch of it. We thought you could make some tea with it.” She eyed me thoughtfully. “Or maybe you could put it on your nose. You know, like they did in the old days. It might be good.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Sounds like a fine idea.” I looked at Brian. “What did your father say?”
“He said he’ll see us when he gets here.” Brian squatted down so that his eyes were level with the glass jar. “Some tadpoles,” he said admiringly. “Man, they’re really big. Like wow.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Tadpolis giganticus.
Where did you find the gun?”
“Same place we found the tadpoles. Hey,” he said to Melissa, “they look like that sperm stuff we saw on TV, don’t they?”
“Yeah,” Melissa said, very seriously. “Except they’ve got eyes. Sperm don’t have eyes, do they?” She appealed to me. “Do they, China?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I never looked.” When I was their age, the thought of sperm had never crossed my mind.
“Probably not,” Melissa said thoughtfully. “The egg is so big, all they have to do is bump into it. They don’t need to look where they’re going.”
Lord deliver us. I turned to Brian. “Where exactly did you find the gun? Like where on the map?”
“Jordan’s Crossing.” Brian unscrewed the lid and poked the tadpoles with his finger. They began to wiggle madly. “You know, where the creek goes through those big concrete pipes. It was just laying there, like maybe somebody threw it out of a car window or something.”
“Lying,” I amended.
“Not,” Brian said indignantly. “It’s the truth, ain’t it, Melissa?”
I sighed. “Go on.”
“That’s all. It was just laying there, and we saw it.” He held the jar up. “I wonder how many we got. A couple of dozen, at least.” He began to count. “One, two, three—”
“Fifteen,” Melissa said. “I counted them when I put them in.” She frowned. “Be careful, Brian. That jar is really slip—”
The good news is that the tadpole jar did not fall on the gun and destroy whatever evidence it might have offered. The bad news is that it fell on the table, bounced and splashed, then rolled off the table and onto the floor. Shortly after we had put out the dog, rounded up fourteen frantic tadpoles and restored them to a new quart jar, and cleaned up the mess, McQuaid hobbled in. Marvin Wallace was with him.
“Where’s the gun?” Marvin demanded. “I want to see it.”
“Good evening,” I said pleasantly. “So
nice
of you two to take time out of your busy schedule to drop in. Would you like to stay for supper, or shall I pack you a brown bag?”
Marvin had the grace to look embarrassed. McQuaid gave me a tentative grin, testing my mood. “Mind if Marvin joins us?”
“Of course not,” I said. The gracious hostess. “I’ll put on another plate.”
“Here’s the gun, Dad,” Brian said. He and Melissa proudly displayed their find. There was a brief consultation, then McQuaid sacked and labeled the gun.
“Good job, kids,” Marvin said, clapping his hand on Brian’s shoulder and smiling at Melissa. “You did the right thing—although you might have left the gun there and gone to a phone to call us.”
“But we were afraid somebody might take it,” Brian objected. He turned to his dad. “Is it the gun you’re looking for?”
“Could be,” McQuaid said noncommittally. “We won’t know until the ballistics tests are run.” He didn’t mention the blood, which the children might not have seen.
Melissa was staring at Marvin, who was still wearing his white Stetson. “I’ve never met a Ranger before.”
Marvin took his hat off and bowed. “At your service, little lady,” he said, sounding like a character in a grade-B Western.
Melissa gave him a dark look. “I’m not very little,” she said. “And I’m not a lady.” I smiled. Out of the mouth of babes.
McQuaid straightened up, leaning on his canes. “Okay, you guys did good. Now we’ll go to the creek and you can show me where—”
“No,” I said firmly. “Now we eat supper,
then
you go to the creek.”
Marvin looked at his watch. “I don’t mean to be rude, but do you suppose we could hurry it up a little?”
“Sure,” I said. “If you and McQuaid will set the table, we can get dinner out of the way in a jiffy.”
Marvin gave me a startled look, but followed instructions. I put the food on the table, and we all sat down. I very much wanted to tell McQuaid about my conversations with Winnie and Letty and find out what was going on at his end of the investigation. I also wanted to know what he had learned when he interviewed Phyllis’s husband, and whether it was true that Darryl had filed for divorce. But I wasn’t about to ask questions in front of the kids, so the guys got to keep their cop-secrets to themselves. With Brian and Melissa monopolizing the dinner table conversation, we heard more about the sexual habits of reptiles than we wanted to know. To change the subject from the striking similarity between tadpoles and sperm, I asked Melissa how she liked living in Pecan Springs.
“It’s better than Syracuse but not as fun as Boise,” she said. “Mountains are nice.” She tilted her head. “Dad says that Atlanta wasn’t so nice, but I was too little to care.”
“You’ve moved around a lot, then,” I said. I was surprised. Most doctors and dentists I knew tended to settle in one place.
“We’re moving,” Brian announced.
“Where?” Melissa asked. “When?”
“Somewhere,” Brian said vaguely. “Soon.”
This was a perfect opening for me to remark that Harold Tucker had called and made noises about getting his house back early. But I didn’t want to let Marvin in on our private family business, so I kept quiet. Anyway, Brian was going on.
“Wanna come to a wedding?” he asked Melissa. “It’s on Sunday. It’s outdoors, and we’re gonna have lots of cake and stuff. But you gotta wear a dress.” He made a face. “That’s because I gotta wear a tie.”
“Well, maybe,” Melissa said, “if I don’t have anything better to do. Who’s getting married?”
“Dad and China,” Brian said, past a mouthful of sandwich.
Melissa looked at me, confused. “I thought China was your mom already.”
“She is,” Brian said. “She’s the mom who lives
here.
My real mom lives somewhere else. She sends me presents sometimes, mostly clothes and stuff.” He brightened. “She sent me a model of the
Enterprise,
though. That was cool.”
Marvin tapped Melissa on the arm. “I’ll take some more of that coleslaw, little lady,” he said.
Melissa gave him a look. “What’s the magic word?”
Marvin colored. “Please,” he said. I smiled.
“I’ll ask Jennie if I can come to the wedding,” Melissa said. “She isn’t my real mom either,” she went on, with a now-that-you-mention-it confidentiality. “My real mom died when I was born. She had blond hair and blue eyes and she was always laughing. She was prettier than Princess Di. Dad says people thought she ought to be in the movies, she was so pretty. She never would’ve done that, though,” she added. “He says she just wanted to be my mom. I dream about her a lot. I wish she hadn’t died.”
“Yeah,” Brian said thoughtfully. “My real mom is pretty too. She’s got long red hair.” He gave me a matter-of-fact, comparing look. “Actually, she’s a lot prettier than—”
“Have your parents been married long, Melissa?” McQuaid asked hastily.
“They got married when we lived in Seattle,” Melissa said. “Jennie’s nice, except when she’s trying to get me to be a lady.” She wrinkled her freckled nose. “I don’t want to be a lady.” She gave Marvin a long look. “I believe I’ll be a Ranger. Like you.”
“I thought you were going to be a botanist,” I objected, feeling hurt. Kids can be so fickle.
Marvin looked stem. “If you’re planning to go into law enforcement, you need to study hard and do a lot of sports. You have to believe in yourself all the way, because it’s harder for girls.”
“Not for me,” Melissa said. “My grades are already better than Brian’s, and when I get into a fight, I hit hard.” She paused. “What’s the matter? Are you sick?”
Marvin was staring at his coleslaw. “Something seems to be ... wiggling.”
Brian got up to see. “It’s the tadpole,” he said.
“Cool,” Melissa said, and giggled.