The Garden of Happy Endings (9 page)

Calvin tugged on his sleeve. “Hey, how do I get a Big Brother? I want to go out to dinner.”

Deacon chuckled. “Is that right? Tell you what, I’ll look into it for you, kiddo. How’s that?” He patted him on the back, and called out at a pair of volunteers struggling with a mattress. “Put it all the way to the back!”

“Come on, kids,” Tamsin said. “Let’s get to work.”

“How are you this fine morning, Miss Elsa?” Deacon asked, pulling on his own gloves. “Pretty good turnout, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’m amazed. You’re a natural at community organizing.”

“Nah, that’s you.” He waved a finger at the people. “Father Jack told me that you’d called everybody, got all this in motion. I knocked on some doors, that’s all.” He eyed her. “That color red looks good on you.”

Elsa flicked her fingers over the hem of her sweater. “This is the oldest, raggediest sweater I’ve ever owned.”

“I don’t care. It’s still a good color.” He held her gaze steadily, and in the bright clear morning, his eyes were as blue as the sky behind him. “Say thank you.”

“Save all your charm for the others, my friend,” she said. “I like you just fine without all that embroidery.”

He laughed. “I meant it!”

She nodded, waving as she walked toward the children. “I’m sure you always do.”

E
lsa gathered the children just after one. Most of the debris had been cleared, and people were bringing dishes into the kitchen, a potluck arranged by the San Roque knitting club. “You guys hungry?” she said to the boys. “I need to get into the kitchen and help.”

“I’m starving!” Tiberius said. “I could eat a horse!”

“I could eat a horse and a cow,” Mario said.

Calvin rubbed his belly. “I could eat a horse, a cow, and a
pig
.”

Elsa laughed. “C’mon, guys. Let’s go get washed up. Not sure there will be any horses, but if I know this group, there will be plenty of pie.”

Tamsin slapped her dirty gloves together. She had a smear of dirt across her forehead, and a sweaty ring around her neck. “I’m just going to run home and grab the salad I made. You want me to get anything else?”

“Doughnuts!” Calvin shouted, poking a fist in the air.

She laughed and put a hand on his shoulder. “You got it. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

Elsa herded the children into the boys’ room and ordered them to wash up. After they came out and showed her their hands, one by one, they all trooped into the kitchen, where the knitting club was setting out the feast. “Not yet, young man!” one scolded Calvin as he reached for a deviled egg. “Let the adults get theirs first.”

“He’s done an adult’s share of work this morning,” Elsa said, stepping forward. “They all helped. The adults are on their way, too.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said. She had a pair of rectangular blue glasses perched on her nose, and she peered over them. “Do I know you?”

Elsa stuck out her hand. “I’m Reverend Elsa Montgomery. I’m running the garden project for Father Jack.”

“Oh.” She shook hands limply. “The ex-minister. Not Catholic, though, are you? Something metaphysical or the like, isn’t it? Unitarian?”

“Go ahead, kids,” Elsa said, putting paper plates in their hands. “Not ex, actually. I’m on sabbatical, and it’s Unity.”

“Huh.”

Elsa moved on, filling her own plate with the bounty—the eggs, of course, but this was a heavily ethnic community, Italian, Mexican, and African American, so there was manicotti and lasagna, tamales and a pot of green chile, pulled pork and lemon cake. By the time she reached the end of the line, her plate was bending in the middle. She sat down with the boys.

Tiberius popped his eyes. “You gonna eat all that?”

“Yes, I am,” she said. “Look at you.”

“Yeah, but I’m a boy. Girls ain’t s’pposed to eat like that.”

“Girls who work hard get to eat just as much as boys who work hard.”

“My mama’s always trying to lose weight,” Calvin said, and slurped the meaty center from a tamale. “She don’t eat no meat and no sugar. She say they bad for you.”

“Not my mom,” Mario said. “She cooks everything so good you couldn’t help but eat.”

Elsa let their conversation flow around her, realizing it had been a long while since she’d been in the company of children. It was one of the things she missed about her job, the kids.

One of the many things.

Firmly, she clamped down on that line of thinking. She would eventually have to sort out her thoughts in order to be ready to go back when the board allowed it. But not today.

Not today.

T
amsin drove to her house, thinking she might change her shirt as well as pick up the salad. She was sticky and a little stinky after the morning’s work. Her blood fizzed with the unfolding summer—gardens, gardens, gardens! A chance to create beauty in a very ugly spot.

As she came around the corner, she was humming under her breath, so it took a long, long minute for her to comprehend something was wrong.

Very
wrong.

At first, it just didn’t make sense. There were several cars parked in front of her house, two more in the driveway. Two of them were patrol cars with lights blinking on top.

Cops.

Tamsin parked crookedly at the high curb and slammed out of the car, crying, “What happened? Is someone hurt?”

No one paid her any attention. She hurried toward the front door and came face-to-face with a man in a black suit and that little squiggly thing going from his ear down into his coat. Black sunglasses masked his eyes. He carried a box of papers and files. Behind him came a man awkwardly carrying a computer monitor. Post-it notes were attached to the side, and she recognized that it was the computer from the family room.

“What are you doing?” Tamsin cried. “Stop right now!” She lunged for the cord, trying to grab it. The man easily swung away from her. There were others behind them, and she heard the staticky sound of a conversation on the two-way radios. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Step aside, ma’am. Official police business.” He pushed by her.

“Stop! These are my things!” She grabbed his arm. “Stop!”

Again he yanked away as if she were a ghost. “Sheriff. A little help here.”

A man in a brown uniform took her arm, not ungently. “I need you to step out of the way, ma’am,” he said in a rumbling voice. A broad-brimmed khaki hat shaded his face.

Tamsin hauled her arm out of his grip, spying another man carrying more things. She ran toward him, planted herself on the steps of the porch, and pointed. “Put that back! It belongs to my daughter!”

“Sheriff!”

“Give me a minute, ace.” The brown-uniformed man held up a hand. “Let me talk to her.”

“No!” Tamsin cried. “I don’t want to talk to anybody!” Adrenaline pumped into her body and she made a running tackle at the man on her porch, wresting the box away from him and diving back into the house. She smashed into the body of another giant bug-eyed man and dropped the box, spilling Alexa’s school papers and notebooks all over the floor. She cried out in frustration, tears running down her cheeks as she scrambled to gather the mess, keep all this history
safe—

She was suddenly and forcefully hauled to her feet by hands on either side of her. Two big men picked her up and carried her outside, kicking, crying, trying to wrest herself out of their grip, until they dumped her on the lawn.

The sheriff had handcuffs in one dark fist. “If you don’t calm yourself, ma’am, I’ll have to arrest you for obstruction of justice, and that’s just going to make a bad day worse.”

She suddenly became aware of a cluster of neighbors standing on their sidewalks, watching her. The grass beneath her bottom was wet, soaking her jeans, and she was as snotty-nosed as
a two-year-old. Lacking anything else, she used her sleeve to blot her face. “What’s happening? Why are they taking all of my things?”

“Are you the lady of the house?” he asked, and flipped open a notebook. “Thomasina Corsi?”

“Tamsin. Yes.” She stood up, watching men carry out box after box of her belongings. Rage and terror boiled in her chest, insisting she do something,
anything
, to stop it, but she forced herself to cross her arms and stay put. “How can they do this?”

“Do you know how to reach your husband?”

“He’s on a business trip in Europe, changing locations nearly every day.” She crossed her arms, suddenly feeling a cold shadow move over the top of her head as she thought of all of the days he had been out of touch. “I have an email address for him.”

“No cellphone?”

“He doesn’t like to carry a cell in Europe. He says the roaming charges are too expensive.” She shivered. “What
is
all this?”

“Your husband is being indicted on criminal charges related to a Ponzi scheme,” he said. “I’m afraid we have orders to seize your house and everything in it.”

She heard the words, but they made absolutely no sense. “What do you mean? I
live
here. I need to go change my clothes and get some food for the church potluck. My sister is waiting for me.”

“I understand. But I’m afraid you won’t be going into your house for a few days at least. Can you stay with your sister?”

“No.” Tamsin shook her head. “This is ridiculous.” She wasn’t about to be kept from her house.
Her
house, the house she had worked for years to bring to perfection, one of the most beautiful Victorians in the city of Pueblo. Every year, it was on the Christmas tour, and it was always a favorite. “This is my house. Mine. I’m sorry, I really am in a hurry.” She started for the door. She would just go in and—

Again, he caught her arm. “Mrs. Corsi—”

With a rush of terror, she yanked her arm. “Leave me alone! This is my house. Those are my
things
they’re carting away!”

His grip was immovable. Not painful, but not about to be shaken off. “I know this is difficult, but your husband has stolen millions of dollars. It’s possible you can get the house back, but for now, it’s being seized. We’re taking everything.”

“But what about my clothes? My computer? My daughter’s things?”

He shook his head. “We can probably let you in to get some of your personal things with an escort, but not today.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

For a long moment, she simply stared up at him. He had a pointed nose and very dark eyes. “A Ponzi scheme?”

“Yes.”

Tamsin blinked. “He wouldn’t do that. We have lots of money.”

“We’ll need to know exactly where you are for the next few weeks, and we’ll need to interview you and find out what you know.”

“I don’t know anything about his business. It’s finance. Numbers bore me to tears.”

“That’s fine. You can tell that to the investigators.”

She whirled suddenly. “What about his office? Downtown? His employees?”

“His office has been seized as well. His employees will all be interviewed, and we suspect that at least a few of them had some knowledge of the scheme.”

“I’m sure there’s been some mistake,” she said, feeling suddenly winded, as if she might faint. “I’m just … it’s so … I think I need to sit down.” She plopped down to the wet grass and put her head on her knees, trying to breathe.

“In through your nose, out through your mouth,” the sheriff said.

Tamsin followed his instructions, her brain whirling insensibly. After a moment, she raised her head. “What now?”

“Will you come with me to the Sheriff’s Office to be interviewed?”

She shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, of course.” She brushed hair away from her face, feeling empty and shaky. “I need to stop and tell my sister, over at San Roque. She’s expecting me.”

“That’s fine.”

Tamsin got to her feet. “Do I have to ride with you or can I drive my own car?”

“You can drive,” he said. “The Subaru, though, not the BMW.” He nodded toward a tow truck hooking up the sports car.

His heart will be broken
, Tamsin thought. And then,
What if he really did it?

“I’ll meet you at your office,” she said in a dull voice. She picked her purse up from the grass, put back all the things that had spilled out, her little brush and a pair of lipsticks, and some gum wrappers, and slung it over her shoulder. She put her glasses on and walked straight to her car without looking at her neighbors, still assembled on their lawns, afraid of what she would see if she did.

E
lsa and the boys were finishing their lunch in the fellowship hall when Tamsin materialized at the side of the table, wild-eyed, her bangs in a sweaty tangle on her forehead. “Can I talk to you?” She pointed. “Outside.”

“What is it?” Elsa asked, alarmed. “Is Alexa okay?”

“Sorry, yes, nothing like that.”

Elsa eyed the children. “Boys,” she said, “I’m going to have to go. Thanks for your help—come see me next Saturday, okay?”

They nodded, feet swinging, and waved their hands. “Okay, Miss Elsa,” Calvin said.

She touched each of their heads as she walked by, carrying her dishes to the sink. Tamsin headed outside and Elsa followed her out to the front sidewalk. “What’s up?”

Tamsin started to speak, lifted a hand, palm to the sky, and closed her mouth again. “There’s … I went to my house … I’m not sure … They wouldn’t let me in.”