Authors: Earlene Fowler
He followed me inside, where I immediately went to the window facing the bed-and-breakfast where the Taurus couple was staying. They drove up ten minutes later. While I was watching them, the doorbell rang. At the door I called out, “Who is it?” though it was unnecessary since Scout’s tail was beating furiously against my leg.
“It’s Rich.”
I opened the door wider. “Come on in. Guess I didn’t have to be so paranoid and make you announce yourself. Scout here’s a pretty good indicator of who’s safe and who’s not.”
He reached down and scratched behind Scout’s floppy ear. “Not really, kid. Don’t forget, he’s known those Briggstone boys a long time and probably thinks they’re all right. As much as I like to give our canine companions their due, sometimes they aren’t any better at judging character than us humans. They react well to positive treatment just like us, without thinking about how that person petting them and giving them treats might just sell other dogs for scientific experimentation.”
“Good point. I’ll keep that in mind. What’s up?”
“I made
arroz con pollo
and was wondering if you were hungry. I’ll confess right off that I have an ulterior motive, besides wanting your lovely company. I want to hear what happened at the Basque restaurant in Bakersfield.” The expression on his face was eager and hopeful.
I glanced up at the clock. It was a little past four-thirty. Gabe would probably want to have dinner with me, but I couldn’t bear to disappoint Rich. Gabe and I could have coffee later. The information I had about the couple following me wasn’t horribly urgent. A few more hours wouldn’t matter.
“Okay, let me call Gabe and tell him I’m back and that I’ll meet him. I’ll be over after that.”
“Did I interrupt dinner plans between you two? Look, the chicken can wait. It tastes just as good heated up the next day.”
I squeezed his forearm affectionately. “No, I want to have dinner with you. Gabe and I will have plenty of time to talk. And, boy, do I have a lot to tell you.”
After telling Gabe I got back okay and making plans to meet him at Blind Harry’s at seven o’clock, I went over to Rich’s with Scout and told him the latest link in Jacob Chandler’s chain, including my discovery about the fake photographer and his wife.
“You are going to tell your husband right away, aren’t you?” he asked, his dark face worried.
“Yes, Papa,” I said, teasing, “as soon as I see him. I’m going to let him handle this one with no hassles from me. I don’t even have the urge to confront these people myself since I have no idea who they are or what their business is following me.”
“I wonder if Jacob had other people he owed money to,” Rich mused, spooning more chicken and rice onto my plate.
“I’m going to gain ten pounds living next door to you,” I said, taking a large chunk of white meat and tossing it to Scout.
“You need energy to carry on your investigation,” he said, pushing the bowl of homemade guacamole toward me. “You’re just like my daughters, trying to survive on Wheat Thins, diet Coke, and popcorn.”
“That shows how little you know about me, Señor Trujillo. I’ll never be accused of being anorectic.” Scout whined next to me. “No more for you, Mr. Scout, or we’ll be renaming you Mr. Tubby.”
“Just to prove to you I’m not as lazy as I look, I’ve been doing a little investigating of my own. Discovered an interesting fact about why the Briggstone boys are harassing you.”
I sat forward eagerly. “You did? What?”
He rested his elbows on the table. “I’ve become pretty buddy-buddy with Ray Newhard down at the docks. He owns Ray’s Sportfishing, and I tease him that I helped pay for his new galley because I’ve done so much fishing these last few months. I asked him what he knew about the Briggstone boys. After discovering that there was no love lost between him, Duane, and Cole, I told him just enough of your story to get him interested.” He gave me a questioning look. “Hope that was all right.”
“Knowing this town, he’d probably heard about it anyway.”
“You’re probably right, though he didn’t act like it. Besides just confirming what you and I already know—that Duane and Cole are a couple of losers who work just enough at the docks to buy beer and
Playboy
magazines—he said about a month or so back he overheard them at the Masthead, that bar downtown where fishermen hang out, bragging about being ‘all set’ when their mom married that old fart she’d been seeing. Apparently they said they might not even have to wait that long, that they knew for a fact he had a lot of money, and it was easy to get to.”
“Between his checking and savings account he had about twenty thousand dollars. I wouldn’t classify that as a lot of money. As for easy to get to, it is if you have the authority to draw it out, which they don’t.”
Rich stood up and started clearing the table. “Maybe there’s more. Maybe he has it hidden in the house somewhere.”
I handed him my plate. “If it was, Gabe or I would have found it. And it couldn’t have been in the garage, or Duane or Cole wouldn’t have tried to burn it down.”
“So maybe it’s something worth money, like drugs.”
“I think you’re really reaching. Jacob Chandler didn’t seem the type to deal drugs. And you forget, this house was thoroughly sniffed out by a professional drug dog.”
He started rinsing the dishes, his face skeptical. “I’m not sure there is a type, Benni. And those frequent trips to Mexico that lady told you about. What were those about?”
“You said he liked to fish. Maybe he went fishing.”
Rich shook his head doubtfully. “We do know he’s manipulating you on this crazy scavenger hunt, and I’m afraid there’s something at the end of it that might harm you because someone else wants it.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be anything at the end of this hunt except his identity. “Like Duane and Cole. And maybe that pseudo-photographer and his big-haired wife.”
“Could be. That’s why you’d better tell all of this to your husband pronto. Let him decide what’s the best thing to do.”
“I will as soon as we’re through here.” I took my plate over to the sink and started running hot water.
“Leave those, kid. I want you to get to town and tell your husband about those people now. Maybe I should follow you there, just in case.”
“Thanks, Rich, but honestly, I’ll be fine. If they didn’t do anything on the trip back from Bakersfield, I doubt they’ll harm me on the twelve-mile trip to San Celina.”
“Okay, but I won’t rest easy until I see your truck back here safely.”
After saying good-bye, I put Scout in the back of the pickup, not having the heart to make him stay home alone again, and headed for San Celina. Gabe was waiting at our usual back table downstairs in Blind Harry’s book-lined coffeehouse. In the background, a flannel-shirted girl played a beautiful Spanish guitar to a packed Friday night crowd.
Gabe came around the table to wrap me in a big hug. He wore a soft wool sweater that smelled distinctly of his scent, and I rested my cheek against his shoulder, feeling my stomach finally calm down. It was time to tell him about Jacob Chandler’s connection with my mother. I don’t know why I held back even for a day. This man loved me and wanted to help me. It had been a long, hard journey this last year and few months, learning to trust each other, learning to be vulnerable.
There was no area in my life, even Jack’s death, that had affected me like losing my mother. It had taken me years to understand that. And yet Gabe and I had never even talked about my mother. With Mother’s Day coming this weekend, a day that was always so difficult for me, this seemed like a good time to start.
“Miss me?” he asked.
“More than you know,” I said, kissing his jaw, then his mouth. “Ouch, you need a trim on that mustache.”
“That’s what happens when you leave a husband on his own,” he said, pulling out my chair. “He falls to pieces. Want me to get you something?”
“In a minute. Have you talked to Dove?”
“They were fine as of half an hour ago,” he said, sitting down across from me, right underneath the John Dos Passos section of Elvia’s informal lending library of books. He sipped his black coffee. “I talked to her over the phone myself. She said to tell you that you could come by with her Mother’s Day present anytime Sunday and that, if because you’ve been so busy running all over creation you hadn’t bought anything, an extra large pepperoni pizza from Nick’s would be the perfect gift.”
I laughed. “No problem. She’s actually right. I bought a card but hadn’t thought of an appropriate gift. Pizza it is. I have some other stuff to take them, too.” I gave him a curious look. “You seem much more relaxed about it tonight.”
He shook his head in amazement. “I know and I have no idea why, especially since I’m getting no less than ten phone calls a day from Bill asking me what I’m going to do. I finally told him that my job was to keep the peace, protect citizens and property, and that I was doing my job, so maybe he should just see about doing his.”
“Good for you. Wonder how his family has been treating him since they found out his mother is one of the San Celina Seven.”
“Not kindly, I’m sure. That’s probably why I’m getting all the phone calls.” He scooted his chair around closer to me and took one of my hands. “Let’s forget about them. Tell me what happened in Bakersfield.”
So I did. He listened to my story, his eyes never leaving my face. His expression darkened slightly when I told him Jacob Chandler’s comment to Mr. Zalba that his biggest regret was not having the courage to speak to me, and Mr. Zalba’s belief that Jacob Chandler had cared deeply for me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, pausing in my story.
“If he’d cared at all, he wouldn’t be putting you through this painful ordeal.”
I squeezed his hand. “It’s not that bad, Friday.” I finished telling him about the visit with Mr. Zalba and showed him the latest message and the white stone. “It’s the same kind of sharpening stone I found in the trunk. At least, I think it is. You know, the line ‘The stone is important’ seems a little too obvious to ignore.”
“What kind of stone is it?”
“I don’t know. I need to take it someplace and find out. Maybe a hardware store?”
“Or one of the geology professors at Cal Poly.”
“Great! I never thought of that. Of course, there’s still the wood carving museum. Man, I need an extra ten hours in a day.”
A shadow of a frown passed across his face, stiffening it. “Didn’t this guy even consider that you might have more important things to do than fool around with his asinine games?”
I stuck the stone and note back in my purse and took a deep breath. “There’s something else I need to tell you, but you have to promise me to stay calm.” First I would tell him about the couple following me, then about my mother’s connection with Jacob Chandler.
His eyes darkened with worry. “What’s that?”
I told him about meeting this couple, their car’s broken taillight, spotting them in Bakersfield after my meeting with Mr. Zalba, and my certainty, after my wild ride around Bakersfield, that they were following me.
“Maybe I’m being paranoid, but it’s too much of a coincidence if you ask me. Let me tell you, the whole drive back from Bakersfield I was ready to jump out of my skin. Maybe the Briggstones hired them. Maybe Beau Franklin did. According to Rich, who heard it from Ray who owns a sportfishing boat, the Briggstones think that Mr. Chandler has some kind of treasure or something hidden. Rich is thinking drugs, but I said that you’d already had the place checked out by the drug dog. They haven’t actually tried to break into the house so they must not think there’s anything there, though with Rich next door it wouldn’t be easy for them. Maybe they did start that fire and are trying to scare me away ’cause there is something in the house. I don’t know. What do you think? Do you think the couple could be involved with the Briggstones or Beau Franklin?”
I paused to take a breath, waiting for him to hit the roof and to rant about me being in too much danger, how could he protect me from this new threat, demand I come home immediately, if not sooner.
Except he didn’t.
His face was flushed but not with anger. I’d lived with him long enough to know embarrassment when I saw it.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded, leaning toward him.
He sat back in his chair, his ocean-blue eyes cajoling, his smile downright sheepish. “I . . .” He stopped and smiled wider. He shifted in his chair and looked at the backs of his hands. “It’s . . .” He stopped again.
For the first time since I’d known him, he was speechless. My eyes widened. Then the realization hit me.
“You didn’t . . . No, even
you
wouldn’t . . .”
He didn’t answer, but the truth was unmistakably there in his eyes.
I slammed my hand down on the table, sloshing coffee. “Dang it, Gabe, this is the most outrageous, annoying thing you have ever done. I was scared to death that whole drive back from Bakersfield. How dare you have me followed! I ought to . . . I don’t know what . . . report you to someone. I swear, if we weren’t in public, I’d smack you silly. You
promised
that you wouldn’t stake me out.” I inhaled, ready to keep going when he interrupted.
“I kept my promise. I didn’t stake you out, and neither did any of my men. Dan and Sandi are old friends of mine from L.A. He and I worked Narcotics together, and now he owns his own investigating firm.”
“Small technicality, Friday, and I ain’t buyin’ it. Did it ever occur to you that I might, I just
might,
catch on? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you would have told me not to do it. I couldn’t be there to protect you—”
“Spy on me.”
“Protect
you, so I did the most expedient thing—hired a stand-in.”
“I’m sorry, but I see that as a lack of complete trust in me and my ability to assess a situation. I’ve kept you informed about every little second of my comings and goings just like I promised, because trust has always been an issue between us. Apparently I’m the only one who is concerned about changing that.”
He scowled and sat forward, resting his elbows on the table. “If I had told you I wanted to have Dan keep an eye on you, you would have refused.”