Dove in the Window (38 page)

“Why didn’t you just get a job?” I blurted out, quickly regretting the words once they were spoken. What if it set her off?

“Doing what?” she asked in a calm, rational voice. “I’m fifty-four years old, Benni. Working on the ranch and being an executive’s wife—that’s all I can do. Besides, I want to paint. That’s
all
I’ve ever wanted. What could I do? I didn’t have a choice.”

“Please, Greer,” I said. “Let Isaac and me help you. You’re in too far now. You’ll never get away with it if you hurt us.”

Her face stiffened, then as suddenly as it did, it fell again. Her mood changes made my heart beat furiously in fear. “I’m so tired, Benni. So tired of trying to figure all of this out. All I want to do is paint. I wish Shelby had minded her own business. I wish you’d left this alone. I was only going to do it for a few more months. Once we sold the land on the highway and I made my name as an artist, I wouldn’t be forced to do it anymore. Timing—it was all just bad timing.”

“Greer, please give me the gun. Let us help you.”

“Shelby was an accident,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “And Kip—he sort of was, too. I didn’t want to kill him. He’d been in on it, but he panicked when Shelby found out. And then she died, and I couldn’t take the chance he’d crack.” She rocked backwards on the heels of her boots. “I’m so tired.”

I felt Isaac shift next to me, dropping the arm he’d been holding in front of me.

“Don’t try anything stupid,” she said, shifting from one foot to the other.

“Greer, you need help.” I kept my voice low and even. “We can get you help. Just give me the gun and then you can rest.”

She looked up at me, her eyes glazed with tears. “I could be famous. I’m good. I’m a good artist.”

“Yes,” I said soothingly, “you’re a good artist. One of the best.”

She looked at me sadly. “Turn around, Benni.”

I stared back at her, feeling my knees tremble slightly, thinking,
this is it.
I swallowed over the hard knot in my throat and took one last chance. “No, Greer, I won’t. If you’re going to shoot me, you’ll have to look me in the eyes while you’re doing it.” I prayed that she wasn’t so far gone emotionally that she’d accept my challenge.

“Turn around or I’ll shoot Isaac in the heart,” she said, her voice calm. I turned and looked at Isaac.

He nodded. “Do as she says, Benni.”

“No,” I said. “She’s going to kill us anyway. I want her to look at me when she does.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Greer said, her voice weary. She stepped back out of the doorway into the narrow hallway. “Just turn around. I’m going to lock you in this room and take Isaac with me as a hostage so I can make a better deal with the DA. I know I can’t get away with this, Benni. I’m not stupid. You’re the police chief’s wife. How would I get away with killing you?”

Her voice sounded so calm and reasonable that I reluctantly did as she asked.

“Okay, Isaac,” she said. I could hear her labored breathing in the quiet room. “
Your
granddaughter ruined my life, so here’s a picture for
you
to take to your grave.”

The gun exploded.

I screamed and started to turn around.

Isaac grabbed me and shoved my face into his chest.

“Don’t look, honey,” he said, the words catching in his throat. “It was her last act of friendship to you. Accept it.”

18

THREE DAYS LATER they buried Greer. Her funeral was huge; mourners overflowed the Methodist church she’d attended her whole life. It was a literal sea of tan and black cowboy hats and shiny boots. I arrived right before it started and slipped into a back pew. The minister read the twenty-third Psalm and spent a good part of the sermon talking about God’s great and tender mercies. I said a prayer for her family and for Isaac and left Greer’s, Shelby’s, and Kip’s fates up to the God I believed was the author of both perfect love and perfect justice. Then I cried at the waste and sadness of it all.

I left as quickly as I could after the service. In the parking lot next to my truck, Buck, one of Greer’s two older brothers, saw me as he leaned against a Shannon ranch truck, inhaling quick desperate puffs from his cigarette. His eyes were shadowed by his gray dress Stetson. After a few seconds, he gave the slightest of nods, acknowledging that the family didn’t hold me to blame. A great weight lifted off my shoulders.

The day after the funeral, I drove out to the ranch to take Wade to the airport. Isaac and Dove were sitting on the front porch when I drove up, Isaac’s travel-scarred leather suitcases sitting next to him. I walked up the steps and leaned against the porch railing, facing them.

“You going somewhere?” I asked Isaac.

“I have work back in Chicago,” he said, “things I’ve put off that can’t be postponed any longer. But I’ll be back. When the book comes out.”

“You’re actually going to do a book?” I asked. “When in the world did you find time to take enough pictures?”

He handed me a stack of eight-by-ten photographs. “It’s what I did to keep from going crazy while all this was being played out. I’m calling it
Riding Light—California Ranch Women.
It’ll contain both my and Shelby’s photographs so she’ll get her book. I only wish she was here to see it.”

Dove put her hand over his and patted it gently. I sat down cross-legged on the porch in front of them and flipped through the photographs. Many of them I recognized from Shelby’s months following me around the ranch—some were from the album she’d hidden the negative in. One of Isaac’s was of me sitting next to the creek wrapped up in his leather and fleece coat. He’d caught in me a wary, watching expression somewhere between smiling and frowning. One hand was bunched in a fist, the other laying on my thigh, palm open and vulnerable. His photograph did what all the best ones do—tell a story. In that split second, he captured all the feelings I’d experienced in the last two years.

“That one’s called ‘A Woman Torn,’ ” he said.

I nodded and kept going through the photographs of friends at local ranches, pausing at one of Dove looking out of a side window at the Historical Museum. Her gaze was wistful and longing, looking beyond the photographer’s lens; she leaned out slightly, her arms resting on the ledge, holding her battered Stetson in one hand. Behind her it was dark, but the sun lit up her face, and in her eyes you could see the young girl she once was.

“I love this one,” I said. “I want a copy.”

“Certainly. I’m calling it ‘Dove in the Window,’ ” he said. “And you’ll both get copies of the book as soon as they roll off the presses.”

“That’s a quilt pattern,” I said, surprised.

He smiled. “I know. Dove suggested it to me.”

“Well, now, honeybun,” Dove said, speaking for the first time. “Looks like we’re all saying good-bye to people today.” She nodded at the side of the house where Wade had turned the corner and was walking toward us. He carried a dark blue duffel bag. The bruise on his cheek was already starting to turn lavender around the edges.

I’d called Wade a few hours after the incident at the museum on Saturday night. His heavy sigh had been audible over the phone.

“I can go home now,” he said, his voice catching.

“Yes,” I answered, feeling sad, but also relieved. “You can go home now.”

“I’m going to try to get Sandra back. But if I can’t, I’m going to be a good daddy to my kids. That much I can do.”

“Yes, Wade, that much you can do.”

I stood up, handed the photographs back to Isaac, and went down the steps to meet Wade.

“Ready to go?” I asked.

He nodded. “My plane leaves at noon. I can’t believe I’ll be back in Texas by suppertime.”

Just then, Gabe drove up in his Corvette. He stepped out and walked over to Wade and me. They nodded at each other but didn’t speak.

“You got your car back!” I said. “What’s Emory doing for wheels?”

Gabe smiled down at me. “He bought a car this morning and said he wouldn’t be needing mine anymore.”

“He bought a car! What kind? Why in the world would he do that? Is he planning on driving back to Arkansas?”

“It’s a brand-new Cadillac Seville. And I’m not supposed to tell you this, but for once I’m going to be the one who lets the cat out of the bag. Goaded on by his, in my opinion, questionably victorious date with Elvia, he’s decided not to go back to Arkansas, but to stay here in San Celina to wine and woo her. Apparently he’s talked himself into a job at the
Tribune
and is having all his worldly possessions shipped out. He was perusing the real estate ads in the paper after you left this morning.”

“He didn’t tell me!” I said. “That little twerp. He’s moving out here! Oh, geez, the
Tribune!”
I turned to Dove and gave her an accusing look. “Did you know about this?”

She smiled secretively. “I reckon I’d heard a little something about it. But you know me—unlike some people, I don’t have a leaky mouth.”

I brought a palm up to my cheek. “Elvia! Has anyone told her yet?”

Gabe laughed and ruffled my hair. “Emory said that he was leaving that for you to do.”

“Oh, man, she’s going to kill me.” I grinned. “Emory living here in San Celina. That makes me real happy.”

“I can tell.” He turned to Wade. “So, Harper, you’re heading back to Texas.”

Wade nodded. “Reckon it’s time.”

Gabe looked at him a moment, then held out a hand. “I hope everything works out for you and your family.”

Wade took his hand and shook it, nodding over in my direction. “Thanks, Ortiz. You take good care of her now. She deserves it.”

“I know,” Gabe said.

Wade touched the brim of his hat, then turned to me. “I’ll wait for you in the truck.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” I said.

Dove and Isaac came down from the porch and joined me and Gabe on the front lawn. I looked up at this giant snowy-haired man who, in the short time I’d known him, had managed to steal a tiny piece of my heart.

“I’m going to miss you,” I said to him, “I think.”

“That’s probably the nicest thing she’s ever said to me,” he said, winking at Dove.

“So, you really will come back and visit?” I asked. “That’s not just words?”

“You bet, Benni Harper.” He looked down at Dove, his face soft. “I have relationships here now. I’ll be back.” Then he reached down and pulled me up into a big hug. It felt like being squeezed by a huge polar bear. “Now, you’d better turn your back,” he said after releasing me.

“Why’s that?”

“ ‘Cause I’m going to kiss your grandmother good-bye, and I don’t want you coming after me with a shotgun.”

Then he did. Full on the mouth. And she kissed him back. With a little more fervor than made me comfortable.

Gabe looked at me and grinned.

“Well,” I said with resignation, “I just hope we’re still that enthusiastic when we’re their age.”

“Count on it,
querida,”
Gabe replied. “I’ll go say hi to your dad and give them some privacy. See you at home.”

I climbed into the truck and drove down our long drive to the highway.

“Man, there is a lot of memories wrapped up in this truck, isn’t there?” Wade said as we pulled onto the empty road.

“Yes, there are.”

He leaned back in the duct-taped vinyl seat. “Isn’t nothing left of Harper’s Herefords anymore except for memories.” He stared out the window at the passing bare fields. “I’m going to miss San Celina, but you know, that part of my life is over. It’s time to move on.”

“Yes, I think it is.” We rode silently for about a half mile or so.

“Benni,” he said, breaking the quiet, “I just ... I just want to say thanks again. For believing in me when no one else did. For getting that lawyer when I needed her. For ... everything. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

“Your debt was paid a long ways back, bro,” I said, using Jack’s old nickname for him. “Don’t even think about it.”

Then it occurred to me. What I had to do. I hit the brakes and stopped the truck in the middle of the empty road. “Get out,” I said.

“What?” He stared at me like I was crazy.

I climbed out of the cab, taking my Levi’s jacket with me. He came around the truck, his face confused.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I held out the truck keys. “Take it. It’s time for me to move on, too.”

He stared at the keys, his face crumpling a little.

“I mean it, Wade. Have you got enough gas money to get home?”

He nodded and slowly took them. As they left my hand, I felt my heart give a little dip.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

I nodded. “Whatever I need to sign for you to take ownership, you send it to me and I will.”

He looked back down the road toward the ranch. “Do you need a ride back home ... or to town?”

I shook my head. “It’s only a mile or so back to the ranch. I’ll walk. I need to do some thinking anyway.”

He pulled me into a tight hug. I deeply inhaled the scent of him—the smell of clove gum, leather, and Old Spice. The same aftershave Jack always wore. “Good-bye,” I whispered.

“Blondie,” he said, his voice muffled in my hair, “you take care now. You be happy.”