“Thanks, but I promised the Muppet Brothers I’d take pictures of their kayak brigade. I’m staking out a place near the start, over by the Taffy Shak.”
“Oh, I do love their Georgia peach taffy,” Polly said. “The peppermint’s good too.”
Mel smiled at her. “Maybe Santa will bring you some.” Good; she’d been having a hard time deciding what to buy Polly for Christmas.
“Let me walk out with you,” August said. They took it slow, and Mel resisted the urge to help him down the porch steps, knowing he’d brush her off with an irritated grunt.
“What’s up?” she asked him when they reached her truck.
“Wondered if you could come by this weekend,” he said, his wiry, salt-and-pepper eyebrows pulled together in a frown.
“No problem. I have to work both Saturday and Sunday, but just in the mornings. The waves are supposed to be good, and the boys want to go surfing. What do you need me to do?”
“Saw something over at Big Barn that I want you to check out.”
Her cop antenna instantly went up. Big Barn was an old, half-collapsed barn about a mile from the ranch house. It was a place that Cy showed her on their first jeep ride around the ranch. She’d worked for him at the feed store for about three months.
“I used to play here when I was a boy,” Cy had told her when they stepped into the cool, quiet building. The part that hadn’t collapsed from the elements creaked and sagged, ready to fall with the next rainstorm or minor earthquake. She walked to the back of it, feeling slightly nervous in the dappled sunlight, flinching with every creak of the overhead beams.
“Look here,” he called to her, his voice sounding hollow and farther away than it actually was. He stood next to a huge middle beam that she doubted she could encircle even with her long arms.
She turned on her small SureFire flashlight with one thumb, causing the intense white light to illuminate the post and Cy. The flashlight was one of the few physical things she’d saved from her law enforcement days. She walked over to the beam where he pointed to the carving in the wood:
CJ was here—1961.
“Practically ruined the blade on my new Swiss Army knife doing that,” he’d told her. “I used to come up here and sulk when I was a teenager and my parents were being . . . well, parents.” He’d laughed, shaking his head.
“Do you need me to check on the barn today?” she asked August, wishing he’d mentioned this a few hours ago when she first arrived. But that was August for you. He ruminated things to death and then dealt with them on his own timetable. Then it occurred to her, maybe he’d forgotten it, like her coming here every Tuesday and Thursday or who Shug was.
“Nah,” August said. “It can wait. Been waiting a couple weeks now.”
Mel wished in that moment that August was actually related to her, that they had a relationship that was a little less polite and careful. If he’d been her grandfather, she would have nagged him to tell her what he found, threaten to tell Polly or Love, use the familiarity of a blood relationship to make him reveal what was bothering him.
But she was essentially just an employee. A friend too, she’d venture to admit, but not close enough to push him . . . much. “I have time to hear about it now.”
“You’re on your way home. It’ll wait.”
“You’re the boss,” she said tartly.
A flash of hurt came over his face, and she realized a second too late that the words had sounded sharper than she intended. She touched his flannel-clad forearm with two fingers. “Sorry, August. I’m a little tired.”
“What’re you talking about, girlie?” he answered, winking at her. “You go have yourself a mug of whiskey at the Pelican. Take a long sip for me.”
“A mug would put even me under the table,” she said, smiling. “But I may add a little rum to my hot cocoa tonight.”
“Sounds good. May do that myself.”
She waved at him as she backed out, his solitary figure outlined by the porch light. A brief sense of doom fell over her when she pulled out onto the highway leading back to town. She’d had this feeling only one other time in her life: the day she walked out of the apartment after her last shouting match with Sean. The neighbors had threatened to call the cops, even though they knew Mel and Sean were police officers. Mel left before that could happen, saving them both the embarrassment.
Like so many times before, she’d driven around town, up and down dark streets, ignoring the insect vibration of her cell phone, finally turning it off without checking her voice mail. Her life was so narrow then, so friendless. There were only two phone calls that would have come over her cell: to go in to work or Sean trying to explain again why he felt he had the right to that money. Neither had been something she felt like dealing with at that moment.
Bribery. Graft. Kickback. Payola. Hush money. Like a sick board game, she tried to think of more synonyms for what Sean did, but her mind went blank. Before she discovered the hidden money, she’d defended him to her old partner, Buzz. He’d come to her the month before and told her he’d heard over the grapevine that Sean was on the take.
“That’s bull,” she’d said. “I practically live with the guy. Don’t you think I’d see something suspicious? We were looking at flat-screen televisions the other day, and he said that he’d have to wait until his tax return came in. If he was on the take, believe me, we’d have had that sucker up and running in time for the next game.”
Buzz just shrugged, probably realizing that you couldn’t talk sense into someone who was crazy in love. And she had been from the first moment Sean turned his Irish green eyes on her. She’d been flat-out, no-turning-back, crazy-as-a-loon in love with him. She’d even considered introducing him to her mother, something she’d never done with any of the men she’d hooked up with. It had to have been love if she was willing to subject herself to her mother’s smug look when she saw that Mel had thrown her own life aside for a man just like her mother had so many times. That old saying about the acorn not falling far from the tree was a cliché for a reason.
Finding the plastic-wrapped stack of hundred-dollar bills in the bottom of a ten-pound bag of stale flour had changed everything. What a lame place to hide the money, a television-cop-show kind of place. She was certain he’d hidden it there because he thought it was the one place that Mel would never look. In the two years they were together, she’d never once shown an inclination toward baking. Her idea of a home-cooked meal was sticking a hunk of roast beef and some potatoes in a Crock-Pot. And that was a rare occasion. Mostly they ate out, because they rarely worked the same shift. She’d pulled the bag of flour out in a frenzy of cleaning when Sean was at work because she’d discovered some mouse droppings under the kitchen sink. She’d almost thrown it into the large trash bag with the other open food. But her fingers felt something odd, so she unfolded the bag, dumping the contents into the kitchen sink.
She stared at the plastic-wrapped bundle of money for a long time, not wanting to believe it was there. Resisting the urge to count it, she left it in the sink for Sean to find when he came home from his shift three hours later. By that time she’d packed all the belongings she’d left at his place, filling three plastic shopping bags, and drove back to her own apartment two miles away, where she had sat staring at a blank television screen, waiting for his call.
“Let it go,” she said out loud, her words sounding hollow inside the truck’s cab. She drove slowly down Ocean Avenue, past the Buttercream, which looked cheery and bright in the already encroaching fog. She contemplated stopping by for a cup of coffee, perhaps find out from Magnolia, if she was still there, if she’d heard any news about what was going on with Love and her granddaughter. But it was almost eight p.m., their normal closing time. Besides, these days any caffeine after three or four p.m. made it impossible for her to get to sleep before midnight. Not a problem usually, but she had to open the feed store at six a.m. tomorrow. She’d find out about the granddaughter tomorrow.
Mel’s small rented house looked forlorn in the swirling, cat’s feet fog. Maybe she should get one of those automatic timers for her living room lamp, so she’d at least have the illusion of coming home to something other than a cold, empty house. Maybe she should get a dog. Or a bird. No, a light timer would be easier to use and easier to leave.
She quickly unlocked the door, flipping the light switch next to the door. The floor lamp turned her compact living room a warm amber. The simple brown plaid sofa and matching chair, the old-fashioned maple end tables, the small stack of books from the library, a basket of magazines, her favorite leather slippers, the brown and orange flame stitch afghan Polly crocheted for her last year looked suddenly very precious to her, and she was surprised to feel a burning behind her eyes. She shook her head, fighting the emotion, glad that no one could see her childish reaction.
She put Dove’s pumpkin bread in the refrigerator and filled her teakettle with water. A cup of peppermint tea, a habit she’d picked up from Polly, would help take the chill off her bones. Maybe she’d add a dollop of Maker’s Mark bourbon, a semi-healthy evening toddy.
It was only after she’d changed into warm sweatpants and a faded red Cy’s Feed and Seed T-shirt and went into the living room with her drink that she noticed the flashing light on her phone, set in the far corner because it was the only place that had an outlet. The phone was one she’d bought cheap at Costco and hadn’t bothered to read its description. It didn’t have an audio message indicator . . . or if it did, she couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. And, of course, she’d lost the instruction book that came with it. Half the time, the person who left her a message had to call her again, hoping to catch her at home, because she forgot to check for the tiny flashing red light.
She hit the Message button.
“You have one new message,” the phone woman’s bland voice informed her.
“Ma’s dead,” the voice said. Its Boston accent sent a steel wire of painful memory down Mel’s spine. “We gotta talk.”
NINE
Love Mercy
O
n the drive back home from the drugstore, Love decided that she’d drop off the things she bought Rett, then go to the grocery store. Those steaks had been in her freezer for a month. She wanted everything fresh for her granddaughter’s first dinner in Morro Bay. She’d buy some Romaine lettuce for a Caesar salad and some sourdough bread. A couple of baking potatoes. Corn on the cob. Everyone loved corn on the cob. She could make garlic bread, if Rett liked garlic. She wished she’d had time to bake some cupcakes. Butterscotch spice, maybe. With cream cheese frosting. But, she could defrost that cake she had in the freezer.
She pulled into the driveway and climbed out of her Honda, laughing at herself. For heaven’s sake, she was as nervous as a girl on her first date. Rett would either like her or not. She’d either understand when Love explained her side of what happened or not. Whatever conversation took place about it, Love would not, if she could help it, say anything negative about Karla Rae. Criticizing someone’s mother had just never seemed right to her. She’d be as truthful as she could, but not accept
all
the blame. More than anything she wanted Rett to know that she’d always thought about her, always loved her and that she was happy they’d have a chance to start a new relationship. Things would work out.
She opened the door leading from the garage into the kitchen. Ace’s mournful howl was the first sound she heard. Love froze. Ace was not a howler, not even at the rare fire truck or police siren. The only other time she’d heard that sound was when she let him in the bedroom to see Cy right after he died. She ran into the living room, calling Rett’s name.
Rett lay curled up on the floor in a fetal position, thin arms hugging her chest, shaking like she’d been cold for a hundred years. Ace stopped howling the minute he saw Love and started barking.
“Oh, Sweet Pea!” Love cried, the name she’d called her as a child. She dropped down to kneel next to Rett. “What happened?”
“I’m sick,” Rett whispered, her teeth chattering so dramatically Love was afraid she’d chip one.
She leaned over and placed her lips on Rett’s forehead, testing for a fever in the same way she had with Tommy when he was a boy. Her skin was burning up.
“We need to get you in bed,” she said, helping her sit up. “It’s probably just the flu.”
Please, God, Love automatically thought. Let it only be the flu. She actually had no idea what was wrong, because she knew virtually nothing about this girl.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Rett said. “Please.”
“Can you make it by yourself?”
Rett nodded. “But . . .” Her face was a pale green.
“I’ve got them in the kitchen,” Love said.
She helped Rett into the bathroom, hesitating while she clung to the porcelain sink.
“I’ll be okay,” Rett whispered.
Love reluctantly stepped out of the bathroom and rushed into the kitchen, grabbed the drugstore bag. Back in the bathroom, she thrust it at Rett, who sat on the toilet’s closed lid.
“Thanks,” Rett said, taking the bag. Her face, tight and determined, reminded Love so much of Cy and his last days when he sometimes refused pain medication because it drugged him too much, and he couldn’t talk to his many visitors.
Love closed the door but lingered right outside, ready to rush in and help the minute she heard any sounds of distress. The minutes dragged, then she heard the toilet flush and the water run. Finally, she couldn’t help herself. “Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?”
The door opened slowly, and Rett, gripping the doorjamb, looked up at her. “I think I need to lie down.”
Rett’s words slurred slightly, her Southern accent more prominent in her weakened state. Cy used to say that Love was the same way, that her mountain drawl would show itself more when she was tired or sick.