Mariner's Compass (26 page)

“You’re darn right.”

“Sometimes when you love someone, you have to go against her desires and do what is right for her.”

I pointed a finger at him. “Listen up, Chief. I’m not your child. I’m not incompetent or stupid or foolish—”

“I never said you were any of those things.”

“No, but your actions do.”

“Look, what did you expect me to do? I’m going crazy here. My wife is staying alone in a place where there are people who want to harm her. She’s driving all over creation,
unprotected
, following some nutty treasure hunt set up by a dead man who, as far as I can tell, was a sick control freak, while her grandmother holds hostage the town’s historical museum, causing me no end of headaches in trying to rearrange my officers to keep her and her friends protected. Not to mention I have the whole city council, the mayor, and the local press on my ass asking what I’m going to do about her. What am
I
going to do? What a laugh. What can I do?”

“Leave my gramma out of this.”

“Believe me, sweetheart, I’d love to. Unfortunately, protecting this city is my job and one I’m determined to do no matter how much I’m undermined by the women in your family.”

I stared at him flatly. “Let’s not go any further with this because we’re only going to say more things we regret. Just call off your watchdogs and let me deal with this situation without interference from you.”

“No problem. Forgive me if I showed too much concern for your safety. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“Why is everything so black and white with you? Why can’t you understand there’s a difference between control and concern?”

“Why can’t
you
understand that your way of showing love is not the all perfect, only way to show it?”

I stood up and slammed my chair into the table. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Especially here.”

“So when do you suggest we talk about it?” he asked, remaining seated.

“How about ... oh,
next year.
” I walked out of the room without looking back. I knew I was acting childish. Just like he was. It never failed to amaze me how quickly adults resort to playground tactics when fighting. I guess everything we needed to know we did learn in kindergarten.

I contemplated dropping by the Historical Museum to see how Dove and her group were faring, but she’d know the minute she saw me that something was going on between me and Gabe, and at this point I wasn’t up to her third degree.

On my drive back to Morro Bay, I thought about what Dove was to me, a convoluted mix of mother and grandmother. A real grandmother, one where that was the only relationship, would have probably been completely on my side. At least, that’s the way Elvia’s grandmother always was. And my other friends’ grandmothers, too. I’d spent my whole life observing the relationships between my friends and their mothers and grandmothers, fascinated and envious of the fact that most of them had both and that the relationships were so different. Dove had never been able to be a doting, indulgent grandmother to me, as she was to the rest of her grandkids, because she’d become my surrogate mother from the time I was six.

My thoughts wandered to what my mother would have advised. Would she have told me to give in to Gabe, placate him, tell him what he did was okay because his intentions were good? Or would she have told me to stick to my guns and make him see my way? Or maybe she wouldn’t have given any advice. Maybe she would have said that we’d have to work this out between us, that I was a smart girl, that she’d raised me to make up my own mind, fight my own battles, that no matter what happened she’d love me, she’d always be there. The lie all mothers told their children. One their children believed because the possibility of it not being true was too much to bear.

Except sometimes you had to bear it.

I’d never know what my mother would have told me to do about Gabe. I didn’t have a clue as to what type of person she was, what type of person she would have ended up being by the time she was fifty-three. In my mind she would always be twenty-five. I had no sense of her voice anymore, the smell of her, the way she walked, the way she cleaned a house. Did she vacuum or dust first? For some reason, I desperately wanted to know that one small detail.

The house was dark when I parked in front. The skeletal shell of the garage roof looked spooky in the shadows. The pungent, dusky smell of burnt wood still permeated the air. Thankful that Scout was with me, I walked up to the front door, my stomach feeling like a chunk of ice. The doorknob was cold in my hand as I fumbled with the lock. Underneath my foot, plastic crunched. I flipped the porch light on and bent down to pick up the cassette. I’d cracked the case, but the cassette inside was intact.

I quickly closed the door behind me, went through the house switching on every light, and turned the wall furnace on high to eliminate the damp chill. Standing in front of the heater, I contemplated the unmarked cassette, wondering if it was another clue from Jacob Chandler. But who had left it here? He had so many people involved in this stupid game that it could have been anyone. I stuck the cassette into his stereo and after fiddling around with the unfamiliar knobs and switches, music started to play.

It was an old eighties pop song. One you still heard too often in elevators, in dentists’ offices, and on oldies stations. The music had always intrigued me, but the words left me feeling a little sick, a little scared.

I stood there, feeling my heart beat faster as I listened to Sting and the Police sing the line “. . . I’ll be watching you.”

12

THE NEXT DAY I moped around the house until past noon, wanting to call Gabe but refusing to give in. Finally I decided to call Emory at the newspaper and see what he’d come up with in his investigations.

“Sweetcakes, are you doin’ okay? Rumor on the street has it you and the Man had words last night.”

“Geeze, Emory, do you have the tables at Blind Harry’s bugged?”

“No, but thanks for the idea. Seriously, is everything okay?”

“Gabe and I just had a small disagreement about the words control and concern and how they are not synonyms in any way, shape, or form.”

“Hmm, sounds serious enough for me to steer clear of. What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering if you’d found out anything on Duane and Cole Briggstone.”

“Sure did. You were on my list to hunt down today anyway so you’ve saved me some time.” I heard him shuffle some papers. “Okay, here we are. Duane is a lowlife, but then, we already knew that.”

“Details, Emory, details.”

“He was busted five times in the last two years. Twice for drunk driving. Once for possession of illegal narcotics—speed. And twice for petty burglary. His mama bailed him out every time, by the way, but he did spend a little time in the county jail. Got all that from a cute little receptionist who works for a bail bondsman who’s a friend of a friend.”

“You know, if Elvia finds out you’re flirting with other women, she’ll drop you like the proverbial hot tamale.”

His laugh rumbled over the phone. “Never fear, cousin dear, I only did what was absolutely necessary to obtain needed information for Elvia’s very best friend in the whole world, so how could she be upset with me?”

“You’re incorrigible, but I still love you. What else?”

“Nothing on the older brother, Cole. He appears to be the good son or at least the smart one who never gets caught. Here’s another interesting fact, Mama Briggstone’s store is in Chapter Eleven.”

“Really? That explains why her sons are so upset about me being named Mr. Chandler’s heir. Their gravy train will be shut off. How bad off is she?”

“It was hard getting details since I haven’t cultivated any contacts yet in Morro Bay, but I did find out who owns the building where her store is located and tracked down the property management company in charge of it. Tess Briggstone is three months behind in her store rent.”

“What about their house?” I walked over to the window, Scout following me, and peered through the blinds at their house. It was closed up tight, and no one appeared to be home.

“It’s a rental, too. The owner is an attorney in Santa Monica. His office says he’s out of the country until Memorial Day, and I couldn’t even pry out of his secretary who the management company was so I have no idea if they are also behind on that rent. I could keep digging if you want.”

“No, that’s okay. It really doesn’t matter. All your information just confirms what we already knew, that these people are desperate for money. The question is how desperate.”

“That fire tells me they’re pretty desperate,” Emory said, his voice worried. “I’m chancing your wrath here, but are you sure that house and Chandler’s measly savings account is worth risking life and/or limb?”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Emory. You’re beginning to sound like Gabe. I have to see this thing through to the end.”

“Why?”

I paused a minute, thankful we had the distance and physical anonymity of the phone between us. One look at my face, and he’d instantly know there was something I wasn’t telling him. It had been that way since we were children—this ability to read each other. “I just have to, Emory. You know I hate quitting anything.”

He was silent for a moment. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Now you’re
really
beginning to sound like Gabe.” But I didn’t answer his question.

His exaggerated sigh was audible over the phone. “Fine, have it your way. You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

“Thanks for getting me the information. You’re definitely in the running for being my favorite cousin.”

“Ha, I won that award years ago. I’m in the cousin Hall of Fame.”

I laughed. “What are your plans for tomorrow?” I knew, just like me, Mother’s Day was hard for him. It was our tradition to call each other and talk for hours, but this was the first Mother’s Day he lived near enough to visit. We’d have to figure out a new custom.

“I’m invited to the Aragon house for their traditional fete.”

“What a treat for you. That’s the only day of the year the Aragon men cook. Don’t be surprised if you’re handed an apron.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to fit in. What are your plans?”

“Same as always. I’ll meet Daddy at Mama’s grave and put flowers on it, then we’ll probably eat at Liddie’s. Oh, and I’m bringing pizzas to the San Celina Seven. That was Dove’s Mother’s Day dinner request.”

“Their little escapade has made the Associated Press, you know. That means any paper in the country could pick it up.”

“No, I didn’t know. Think they’ll hear about it back in Sugartree? Aunt Garnet will burst a blood vessel. Worse, she might feel compelled to fly out here and set Dove on the straight and narrow.”

He chuckled. “Heaven help us all. I’ll see you later.”

“If not today, then definitely tomorrow. I always bring flowers to Elvia’s mom for Mother’s Day. Besides, I have to get a picture of you in an apron for future generations to ridicule.”

“Just make sure you get my good side.”

Talking to Emory raised my spirits considerably, so I took a shower and planned my day. As I dressed, I studied Gwen Swanson’s embroidered signature on the baby quilt I’d left draped over the footboard. Maybe Daddy would know who she was. The only way to find out was to drive out to the ranch and ask him.

Before I left I called a florist and ordered flowers for Señora Aragon and for my mother’s grave. Yellow roses for Elvia’s mom, pink roses for Mama. The same as every year. I assumed my dad initially started the custom of pink roses for my mother, and I just took over the ordering when I was sixteen. Were pink roses my mother’s favorite flower? Did they have some personal significance to my dad? I’d never asked because we never talked when we took the flowers to the cemetery. Our yearly visit consisted of the same ritual—my father taking off his hat, standing silently for a few minutes staring at her headstone, then walking away, leaving me to arrange the flowers in the sunken vase and brush the grass off her stone. We always ate at Liddie’s afterwards. We never talked about her.

Outside, the private investigator and his wife were loading up their Taurus. I walked across the street to them.

“Sorry I blew the gig for you,” I said.

The woman smiled at me and shrugged. “Happens,” she said.

Gabe’s friend hefted a leather suitcase into the trunk and slammed it shut. He turned to me and said, “Gabe’s a good man. He was just trying to look out for you.”

“Yeah, well, it’s more complicated than that.”

He tossed his camera bag into the backseat. “Good luck. Maybe we’ll meet again under more agreeable circumstances.”

“Maybe.”

“Just one piece of advice.” He jerked a thumb over at the Briggstones’ house. “Watch your back with those two jokers. They’re not very smart, but they’re mean.”

“Don’t worry, I intend to.”

THE RANCH FELT empty and sad without Dove’s visible and often audible presence. The clothesline was bare, and no crackly voice singing, “Bringing in the Sheaves” or “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It” greeted me. Even the chickens pecking at the bare ground seemed unusually quiet. I wandered back to the barn where Bobby, one of my dad’s hands, told me he was in the tack room searching for a snaffle-bit.

An old plastic radio played Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” when I walked in. Daddy was rummaging through a desk drawer.

“Haven’t heard that song in years,” I said.

He looked up and smiled at me. “Hey, squirt. Found this new station that only plays real country music.”

“An oldies country station? That’s great. I wondered when someone would come up with the idea.”

“What’s up?” he asked, pulling a bit out of a drawer, looking at it with a frown, then throwing it back in.

I reached over and ran my hand over the seat of my saddle sitting on a wooden rack. Daddy and Dove gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday. My name was carved across the back of the cantle. I cleaned and polished it so many times that year that Daddy teased I was going to rub my name down to his. I looked at the dust on my hand and laughed. “Needs a good cleaning.”