Steps to the Altar (18 page)

“Don’t believe everything you read,” I said, giving an uncomfortable laugh. My few stumblings into crime had, unfortunately, been reported in the same paper Maple and Mitch had worked for.

“I think it’s a hoot,” she said. “And I appreciate your interest. I’d honestly love to see Uncle Mitch’s name cleared.”

“And Maple’s,” I reminded her.

“Right.” Rosie’s unconcern for Maple and her reputation made me feel even more protective toward her. It wasn’t fair that, even after all these years, it was the prominent local boy who had people caring about whether his name was cleared and not the young Kentucky farm girl who had come to San Celina armed only with her starryeyed love and one meager trunkful of possesions.

Inside the house, a small child started crying. The corgi jumped up and barked twice.

“Okay, okay,” Rosie said, slowly putting out her cigarette in the half-filled ashtray. “I’m coming. Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. Good luck.”

“Thanks,” I said.

A louder wail caused her to roll her eyes. “Thought I was through this part of my life.” She gave me a wave goodbye, then opened the screen door. “I’m coming, baby boy. Just hold on.” The corgi dashed through the open door in front of her.

I was opening the door to my truck when a grizzled, old man’s voice said behind me, “She’s full of crap, you know.”

Startled, I jerked around to face the man. He seemed to have appeared from nowhere, but I realized after a moment, that he had probably been lurking behind the hedges listening to every word we said. He appeared to be in his eighties and was dressed in new blue Levi’s rolled up with large cuffs and a pale blue Western shirt. His face was red and peeling, as if he’d just had a bad sunburn, though most of it was hidden under his expensive white Stetson cowboy hat. I assumed him to be Frank and Rosie’s grampa Micah.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Crap,” he repeated. “Full of it. You and her both. There ain’t no more story to Mitch and that Sullivan woman and you’d best be leaving it at that. Hear me now.” He poked a ragged-nailed finger at me, punctuating each word. “Hear me?”

“You must be Micah Warner,” I said, unnerved by his aggressiveness, but wanting to keep him talking as long as I could. Maybe some vital piece of information would slip. “I’m Benni Harper. I’m just doing a little research for the historical society.”

He didn’t acknowledge my statement. “Mitch was my baby brother,” he said. “I’m sick and tired of people dragging him through the mud.”

“That’s not my intention, Mr. Warner. I just want to know the truth.”

He grabbed my forearm with an iron grip that spoke of a man who’d spent many years roping cattle. I could feel his horn-sharp calluses through my shirtsleeve. “Young woman, I know about you and I don’t want you nosing about my family’s business. I’m telling you to leave Mitch alone. Let his soul rest in peace.”

He made the statement with such authority.

“He’s dead?” I asked, trying to pull my arm from his strong grip without actually jerking it away. “How do you know that? Have you heard from him in the last fifty years?”

He released my arm abruptly, giving me a slight push. I fell awkwardly against the side of my truck. He stared at me a long minute, then said, his voice less harsh, but still tinged with anger, “What he did or didn’t do is between him and his God. Do everyone a favor. Stay out of it.” He turned and started back around the house.

Trembling slightly, I gave the house one last look and got into my truck, wondering if Rosie had seen my encounter with Micah. There was no doubt he knew more than he was telling and also no doubt that he was not willing to share it with me.

“Okay, Mr. Warner,” I said, maneuvering the truck down the long tree-lined driveway back to the main road. “I’ll just have to find out on my own.”

It was seven o’clock and already dark by the time I got back to San Celina. I cruised by our old house and noted that Gabe’s Corvette was gone. Obviously off drying the tears of the beautiful, yet deeply troubled Delilah Hernandez.

I pulled into the driveway and went inside. The house had that sad, pocked-wall look of a place in transition. I sent up a quick prayer that the next person who lived in this house would not have as much emotion-filled upheaval as I’d had in the time I’d lived here.

I let Scout in from the backyard, which told me Gabe had never come home. I fed him, hid a couple of biscuits in his toy box for him to root around and find later, then headed back out. Neither house in their half-empty–half-filled states felt enough like a home for me to settle down. What an odd and sad coincidence that Del would show up right at the time when I felt like Gabe and I were finally starting a real life together.

Restless and disturbed by the small bit of information Micah had let out about his brother, I wanted something to do that would completely occupy my mind. What I really wanted to do was run this whole situation with Gabe and Del by someone I trusted. Normally I’d go to either Elvia or Emory with a crisis like this, but it was only a week before their wedding and I was not going to lay any kind of marriage woes on them now. The same with Dove, who didn’t need one more distraction in her harried life.

“So it’s time to solve your own problems, Benni Harper,” I said out loud. But darned if I could figure out what to do. Wait and see what would happen—that seemed my only mature option. My other option was shooting Del in the heart, which would certainly only add to my problems.

I drove through McDonald’s and drank a chocolate shake while listening to the radio and watching teenage kids loiter in the parking lot, moving from car to car, talking and laughing. I sat there until nine o’clock, my mind hopping from Maple’s situation to my own, not allowing myself to cry even though my chest grew tight and hard begging for the release. I wouldn’t give Gabe or Del that power over me. At nine-twenty, I still didn’t want to go home. I was determined to stay out longer than Gabe, though I had no idea why I thought that would prove anything.

Needing to kill more time, I decided to drive by the Sullivan house and take a look at it.

The last half-mile stretch before the house was lit only by my headlights, city streetlights not reaching this far out. As I turned a sharp corner, the work light shining in the octagonal barn next to the house was like a beacon. There were obviously some people up there working. When I pulled into the gravel driveway and saw who it was, I put the brakes on and threw the transmission in reverse. But not before he saw me.

I watched Detective Hudson slip his hammer into his leather toolbelt and start down the little slope toward my idling truck. He waved a hand in recognition. If I pulled away now, I’d look even sillier than I already did. I reluctantly rolled down my truck window.

“What are you doing here so late?” he asked, his dark eyes sympathetic as if he knew exactly what I’d been doing the last two hours.

12

GABE

WHAT IS WRONG with her, Gabe thought for the fifth time as he stared at the unfinished paperwork on his desk. He’d been irritated by Benni’s stubborn refusal to understand his relationship with Del since he’d first walked in this morning. Maggie, his assistant, had noted his mood from the moment he passed her desk hours earlier.

She’d silently handed him his mail, raised her dark eyebrows, and gestured at the full coffeepot on the credenza next to her. “Would you like a cup?”

“Yes, please,” he said. “Black.”

“Morning’s problems haven’t even started yet, boss,” she murmured, pouring him a cup. On good days, he took cream and sugar.

“On the contrary,” he’d replied, without elaborating. He mumbled his thanks and went into his office, closing the heavy oak door behind him.

He’d attended his morning meetings and said the appropriate things, trying not to think about Benni’s words. But their persistent points kept intruding into his thoughts.

Was he wrong in not telling her about his and Del’s personal relationship? Should he have pulled her aside and whispered a confession to her before they had dinner? The thought seemed ridiculous to him. What would he have said? What would that dinner have been like had she known? Women were so irrational about that sort of thing. He wasn’t forcing details about her love life with Jack out of her, was he?

He knew her so well, he could almost hear her tart voice.
Yeah, well, he’s not sitting at our dinner table either.

It was late afternoon now and he rested his hand in his chin, too weary after his restless night to contemplate all these figures and facts spread out in front of him. He let his mind wander back to a time in his career when paperwork didn’t encompass ninety percent of his time. He missed the drama of the street, the adrenaline of a good bust, even the crazy people he’d met and grown to like, the snitches and the liquor store owners, the pawn shop men with their hungry eyes, the fast-talking prostitutes who were there one day, gone the next, like a whisper of fog. He never felt more alive than when he worked the streets.

Except for Vietnam. There, each morning he woke still living, all his parts still attached, was a gift gladly accepted, unquestionably taken. He tried not to think too long about all the guys who didn’t receive it, but instead were surprised by death with a bouncing Betty or the exploding burst of a sniper’s bullet.

His phone rang, and after three rings, he reluctantly picked it up. He should have told Maggie to hold his calls. The late afternoon sun coming through his window warmed the back of his neck.

“Hey, Chief Ortiz,” Del’s voice said in a mocking tone. “How many paper cuts have you survived in the last hour?”

“Screw you,” he said good-naturedly, glad it was her voice and not Benni’s on the phone. At least with Del he didn’t have to explain or apologize. She never asked and he never offered. It was so easy to fall back into their joking, easy partner relationship.

“Been there, done that,” she said, giving a rumbling, deep laugh.

It was a laugh that brought back more memories, a low, cynical laugh that always connected with something broken and angry inside him. That laugh had always made him feel she understood, as much as any woman could, the edge he walked, the edge all men walked.

“Are you busy after work?” she asked, her voice flippant, but with that sadness he recognized. During dinner last night, she’d cried for her father, for the emptiness in her life. When she ran out the door, he followed her to the dark, empty parking lot and he’d held her for a moment, fearful yet excited by the quickening of his blood when he caught the sweet coconut scent of her hair.

He glanced at his wall clock. Four-thirty. “Actually, I was thinking about leaving early.”

“I’m free for dinner,” she said.

“Great. How about Italian?”

“Sounds wonderful. Will Benni be joining us?”

He pressed the phone closer to his ear, listening for any artifice in her voice, for the duplicity of Benni’s accusations. In his mind, there were none. Only the sound of a friend asking for some of his time. If she were a man, this wouldn’t even be a problem between him and Benni.

“No,” he said. “She sends her regrets, but she’s in the middle of wedding preparations with her best friend. She’ll be really busy the next week or so.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Del said. “I guess I’ll have to help you kill time so you don’t get lonely.”

He laughed, aware of every movement of his body. He picked up a metal paper clip and bent it into tangles with one hand.

“So,” she continued. “Let’s not eat in town tonight, what do you say? I’m a little embarrassed about making a fool of myself in one of your local restaurants last night. Is there anyplace we can go where we can talk without being so scrutinized?”

“Sure. There are plenty of restaurants between here and Santa Barbara.”

“Thanks, Gabe. You don’t know how much it means to me, you taking the time to talk. I really hope Benni doesn’t mind me borrowing you for a little while.”

“No problem,” he said. “Absolutely no problem.”

13

BENNI

I TOOK A few seconds to answer Detective Hudson, not knowing exactly what to say.