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I trotted up to the storefront and cupped my hands to the glass, peering intently into the darkened interior. A bald man wearing a grease-smudged gray uniform was in the room behind the cash register, sitting at the desk and looking intently at a stack of papers sprawled out in front of him. I sighed, relieved that at least he wasn’t Jake Carpenter, and knocked on the glass.
The man froze, looked at me, then away, as if he could erase my presence by ignoring me.
“Oh, come on, please!” I cried.
I saw his shoulders slump. He looked up, squinting with little coffee-bean eyes. “We’re closed,” he called, then turned his attention back to the paperwork in front of him.
“I know,” I said, “but my car’s front tire just blew and…”
He looked up again, frowning, clearly annoyed at the continued intrusion.
“I’m freezing! Come on! Really, it’ll only take a minute. Please, I’ll pay you double, okay?”
“Come back this afternoon and we’ll take a look at it,” he said.
This was not the Glenn Ford I knew. When I’d lived here the people were friendly, always ready to help a woman in distress. What was wrong with this idiot?
“Listen,” I said, pitching my voice as loud as I could without screaming at the fool, “I don’t have anywhere else to go. I’d change the tire myself, but my spare is gone, and…” Words failed me. I felt tears queuing up at the edges of my eyes and knew I was about to completely lose it. “Damn it, I said please, I said I’d pay you double. Hell, if I knew how to plug a tire, I’d offer to fix it myself. Now what more is it going to take? Do I need to flag down a passing motorist and hope they have a spare my size? Do I need to call a tow truck, the police, EMS? What?”
The man’s eyes widened; clearly he thought a maniac was accosting him. He rubbed his oil-stained fingers across his bald skull and gave up.
“All right, all right, keep your shirt on!”
He stood up, walked around the desk and through the leaf in the countertop to unlock the front door. I watched him approach, my cop instincts inspecting him and fitting him into a preliminary category. He was the kind of guy you didn’t turn your back on, short, stocky, muscular build, tattoos and a bad attitude. He was sizing me up, too, in a nasty, see-you-naked way that made me hug my arms closer to my chest.
“Wait in here,” he said before he’d even pulled the door wide enough for me to pass through. He was gone before I could say a word, grabbing tools as he scuttled over to inspect the Camaro’s tire.
Lloyd went crazy, barking like a demon maniac, teeth bared, eyes showing white and pawing at the window in an attempt to protect me from my knight in shining armor.
I opened the door and started across the lot. “Lloyd, stop that!” I yelled. “He won’t hurt you,” I added, praying Lloyd wouldn’t scare the guy off the job.
The mechanic looked back over his shoulder at me and scowled. “I told you wait inside,” he said. “I ain’t scared of no dog!”
That was good, because Lloyd clearly liked the guy about as much as I did, and hadn’t backed off his display of killer instinct one bit.
I ducked back inside the shop. The guy was a fruitcake, probably an ax murderer in his spare time. I looked past the counter into the office. It looked as if a cyclone had blown through, papers mounded on top of the desk, files open and spilling over onto the floor. It was a wonder the place stayed in business.
When he brought the tire into the shop, I walked to the doorway and watched him. His fingers flew across the rubber surface, locating the nail that was responsible for the flat and quickly working to plug it. His shop was as organized and neat as his office was chaotic.
I stepped back into the reception area, not wanting my savior to see me and get any more irritated, and waited for him to finish. I sat in a cold vinyl chair, closed my eyes and rested my head back against the wall. In ten more minutes, I told myself, it would all be better. I’d be sitting in Aunt Lucy and Uncle Benny’s warm, sunny kitchen, eating homemade cinnamon buns and drinking strong black coffee. I’d be home and nothing else mattered after that.
I guess I must’ve drifted off. The next thing I was aware of was the tinkle of the bell over the shop door. I sprang to my feet as the mechanic stepped into the room. “It’s done,” he said. “You can go now.”
“How much do I owe you?” I said, trying to smile, but stopping at the sour look on his face.
“Five bucks,” he said.
I dug into my pockets, pulling out cash and searching for the right bills. “Oh, come on,” I said, “it’s gotta be more than that. You opened up for me.”
“Five is fine,” he said, his voice almost a snarl.
I handed him a ten. “I don’t want any change. I’m sorry I disturbed you. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t…”
“See ya,” he grunted, pushing the door open and waiting expectantly.
Some perverse part of me, seeing his rush to get me out of his hair, made me linger, walking slowly toward him. “You usually closed on Thursdays?” I asked. “I mean, in case I ever need more work done, I can remember not to bother you on Thursday.”
“No,” he said. “Death in the family.”
That took me back. Of course. He wasn’t always like this, he’d lost someone close to him. That explained everything. I looked back at the office. What if his wife had just died? Maybe she was in charge of the office, the bookkeeping and everything, and suddenly, here he was trying to find the papers he needed to arrange for her funeral.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured. “I’ll leave you alone now.”
I stepped out onto the tarmac and heard the lock click behind me. Aunt Lucy would know all about it. Here I’d been thinking the worst when this guy had just lost his wife or maybe one of his kids. I slid behind the wheel and looked over at Lloyd.
“You see what being a cop’ll do to you?” I said. “It jaundices you toward life. It blinds you to the good in human beings. I’m telling you, Lloyd, in my next life, job, whatever, I’m gonna be something optimistic, you know, like the lay version of a nun. Maybe I’ll go into social work.” I remembered the overburdened therapists at the mental-health center in Garden Beach and thought better of the idea. “Okay, maybe I’ll take up exotic dancing. That way, I’ll be improving men’s mental health while actually getting paid for it!”
Lloyd wasn’t listening. He was looking out the window at the darkened shop and growling.
“Lloyd,” I said, “if your instincts are that good, how come you didn’t warn me about Pete, huh?”
Lloyd’s head whipped back in my direction at the mention of Pete’s name and he yipped, a quick, short bark that I interpreted as an apology.
“Okay, you’re right,” I muttered. “You told me so.” We turned off Lancaster Avenue onto Sunset Drive. “Here we go. We’re home,” I said. I coasted slower as we rounded the corner and approached Aunt Lucy and Uncle Benny’s tiny Dutch colonial.
The street was lined on both sides with cars. “Looks like they got company,” I said. “Maybe it’s Aunt Lucy’s altar guild.” But there were too many cars for it to be a simple ladies’ meeting.
A blue sedan pulled away from the curb close to the house, and I pulled in, parked and looked up at the house where I’d spent the last four years of my childhood. There was a white funeral wreath on the door.
My throat tightened. I stared up at the flowers and felt denial take over. It couldn’t be. I was tired. It was just a decoration, nothing special. The cars meant nothing. My skin began to prickle. Aunt Lucy and Uncle Benny, they’d been fine when I’d seen them last Christmas; no one had called to say they were ill. They would’ve called. Someone would have called. What was going on?
I opened the car door and stepped out onto the street, feeling as if time had somehow slowed to a frozen halt. I rounded the car and opened Lloyd’s door mechanically, watching him jump out onto the sidewalk and make a beeline for a nearby bush. It was like watching a movie.
I felt myself cross the yard, felt the cold air stinging my cheeks without registering the fact that it was cold. I was fixated on the white carnations in the wreath, staring at them as I walked closer and closer to the front door.
As I started up the front steps, the door suddenly swung open. My cousin Nina from California stood there, unsmiling, her black-lined eyes rimmed with red. She looked like an updated, shorter version of her mother, Aunt Lucy’s oldest sister, Myrna. She’s dyed her hair, I thought, taking in the peroxide-blond choppy cut and the pink tips that stood out like miniature signal flags all over her head. I felt frozen, removed from the strange movie that was my homecoming.
“Where the hell have you been?” she said, hands on hips, black vinyl miniskirt tight against her stick-thin thighs. “Well, at least you got here. I guess somebody finally reached you. We only called about five thousand times. I thought cops always had their cell phones on. Isn’t it like a law?”
“What happened?” I asked. I could hear voices behind her and caught flashes of people moving around inside the house.
Nina shrugged, stepping out onto the porch and pulling the door almost shut as she moved. “Heart attack, I guess,” she said. “He had his tablets but they didn’t do any good. By the time the ambulance got there, he was gone.”
“Uncle Benny?” I whispered, tears flooding my eyes. “He’s dead?”
Nina stared at me, frowning. “Stella, hello? Yes, Uncle Benny’s dead. What did you think?” She frowned harder. “How come you’re dressed like that?” she asked. “I mean, even I knew it was cold. And what’s wrong with your foot? Why’s it wrapped up like that?” She looked past me, her eyes lighting on Lloyd. “You brought your dog with you? You couldn’t find somebody to watch him?”
The questions came, rapid-fire, one after another, without a pause to hear the answers. I couldn’t have answered her, though; I was too overwhelmed to speak.
“You’d better get your suitcase and come on,” she said. “We’ve got to leave for the funeral parlor in an hour. They’re sending limos for the family.”
She turned and started to open the door, realized I wasn’t moving and turned back around.
“Are you coming?”
“I didn’t bring…” I began. “I didn’t know…”
Nina closed the door again. She turned and descended the steps slowly, opening her arms to me as she approached.
“Oh, my God! You didn’t know! What did they tell you?”
“Nothing,” I whispered. “I didn’t know.”
Chapter 3
It was a lovely funeral. Strange, but nonetheless beautiful. The only hint of a hitch came when Aunt Lucy said she wanted Uncle Benny propped up in the casket for the viewing, but between the more sensible cousins and the funeral home director, calmer heads had prevailed.
The funeral director explained that they couldn’t prop Uncle Benny up in the casket, that certain natural events would occur to make this impossible, so Aunt Lucy gave in and went standard on the visitation. But she did manage to insist that Uncle Benny be dressed in his fishing vest and lure hat.
“I want people to remember him like he was, not like he is,” she said, and her voice cracked just slightly, letting us all know that if we pushed it, she’d lose it.
Nina leaned over and muttered in my ear. “Too bad you couldn’t get here any sooner,” she said. “Aunt Lucy actually wanted to bury Uncle Benny in his Jon boat. It took some doing to talk her out of that one, I’ll tell you!” She looked over at Aunt Lucy and smiled innocently, then turned back to me. “She’s lost it, Stella. Ever since the stroke, she’s been loopy.”
I looked at my aunt, trying to do an assessment of her mental capacities. She looked just as she always had, only older. She had always been a small butterball of energy and enthusiasm. Uncle Benny’s death had stifled that, but had a stroke made her crazy? I was reluctant to believe that.
“She’s got some strange ideas, Stella,” Nina continued. “I mean, sure, she’s always had strange ideas, but I mean really weird stuff. She thinks she’s the next Einstein or something. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I mean, she can’t live on her own—she’s too nuts to handle the bills, let alone drive or take care of herself!”
Aunt Lucy stopped talking to the funeral director, glared at Nina and said, “I heard that, young lady! I don’t think anybody who runs off with a rock musician and gets certain intimate portions of her anatomy pierced has much room to be calling the kettle black.”
The room fell silent as everyone turned their attention toward the object of Aunt Lucy’s displeasure. Nina’s face turned scarlet, her chin inched up a defiant two inches and she stalked off, her spiky pink-and-blond hair waving like a midsummer wheat field in Iowa.
“You know what her problem is?” Aunt Lucy said. “She moved to California. Them people out there just ain’t right. One day that entire part of the continent is gonna fall right off into the ocean. Then where will they be, huh? That’s right. Reno, Nevada’s gonna be prime oceanfront property—you mark my words.”
I looked over at Uncle Benny. He was lying in a gunmetal-gray casket, his favorite Garcia rod tucked into the satin padding beside him. His hat was listing drunkenly to one side, and there was a lipstick smear on his right cheek from where Aunt Lucy had kissed him goodbye. At the foot of the casket was a shiny red metal cooler loaded with gleaming cans of ice-cold Budweiser.
“We’re popping a top for Benny,” one of my eighteen-year-old cousins explained somberly. “Drinking’s legal in church—at least if you’re Catholic.”
In the background, Dean Martin sang “Amore” and Orlando Wilson floated across a big-screen TV, silently instructing his audience on proper casting techniques.
“You see the flowers, Stella?” Aunt Lucy asked, suddenly materializing by my side. She pointed to a huge funeral wreath shaped like a leaping bass and mounted on a tall wire frame. Gone Fishing, it read. “Ain’t they beautiful?” she breathed. “And them over there.” She gestured to a wreath of red, white and blue daisies that read Sleep With The Fishes, Big Guy! She smiled. “They’re from the boys down at the Saint Anthony’s Lodge.”
“It’s lovely, Aunt Lucy,” I said, but I was really thinking that I’d dropped into a bad day in a psychiatric unit.
Aunt Lucy took my arm and led me closer to the casket. “Look who’s here, honey,” she said to Uncle Benny. “It’s our Stella. Don’t she look pretty with her hair done blond? Of course the clothes belong to Nina, but that’s on account of Stella came sudden.”
I squirmed, tugging at Nina’s black pleated miniskirt. I tried my best not to topple over in the stilettos I’d been forced to drag out from my undercover equipment. Uncle Benny didn’t seem to mind. He appeared to be concentrating on nailing the big one. His eyes were closed and his mouth was frozen in a sewn-shut, lopsided grin. The body in the casket in no way resembled the uncle I loved.
“You couldn’t get them to put in the cigar?” I asked.
Aunt Lucy shrugged. “It was bad for his health, anyway.” She looked back at the crowd. “This is some turnout,” she said. “I think almost the entire town is here. It’s been like this since he died, people turning up with food or beer, all of them talking about the good turns he did for them or the ways he helped them out when times were tough. He done things I never knew about, Stel. The man was a saint.”
The pews in the funeral home chapel were filling up as people filed in for the service. In the background, Dean Martin had finished “Amore,” and was now replaced by Andy Williams singing “Moon River.”
“He don’t look so dead to me, Stella,” Aunt Lucy said. I gazed down at the tiny woman and saw tears begin to track across her withered cheeks. She reached behind me, pulled a can of beer from the cooler and opened it. With great care, she placed it beside Uncle Benny’s left hand, removing another untouched can that had grown warm. “I was kinda hoping maybe the beer would bring him back, you know?” She sounded like a little child, pleading for one more chance.
“I know, honey,” I said. “It’s hard to believe he’s really gone.”
Andy Williams stopped singing, and the soft strains of organ music signaled the start of the service. The big-screen TV went dark momentarily as Orlando Wilson’s fishing tips were replaced by a larger-than-life-size portrait of my uncle, out on his boat in the middle of Kerr Park Lake, reeling in a “big one.”
Aunt Lucy seemed to snap out of her melancholy reverie. “Let’s get this show on the road,” she said as the funeral director started walking purposefully toward us. She lifted her head, wiped her eyes and allowed herself to be led into the family pew that was located off to the side of the tiny chapel.
I trailed along behind her, filing into the box and settling myself next to my aunt. The organ swelled to a crescendo, cueing us all to stand. We opened our leaflets and began singing “Somewhere over the Rainbow.”
Nina nudged me. “Okay, you can’t possibly think this is normal,” she whispered.
I shrugged, irritated. So what if Aunt Lucy was a bit unconventional? It was Uncle Benny’s favorite song. Maybe singing it comforted her. Wasn’t that what funerals were supposed to do, comfort those left behind? Maybe everybody was jumping on the Aunt-Lucy’s-lost-it bandwagon just a little too quickly. Of course, that was before the service started and Jake Carpenter walked to the front of the chapel, looked right into my eyes and took my breath away.
Ten years, a river of bad memories, and the man still had the same intoxicating effect on me.
“Aunt Lucy, what’s he doing here? Where’s Father Mark?” I whispered.
Aunt Lucy frowned. Her eyes filled with tears as she stared up at me. “He wouldn’t come, Stella,” she said. “I thought you knew.”
I just looked at her, feeling crazy. “Knew what?”
The last strains of “Somewhere over the Rainbow” died away, and Aunt Lucy’s voice carried in hushed silence. “They said Benny killed himself, Stella, but he wouldn’t do that. Jake’s the one who found him down at the garage. If you ask me, someone did this to my Benny! That man wouldn’t kill himself. No way, and he wouldn’t up and die on me without a fight!”
The congregation reacted and the sound of their voices almost drowned out Aunt Lucy’s next bombshell. “I know you don’t like him, honey, but Jake’s the only one who listens to me.” She smiled. “It was just a lucky break for us—he’s an ordained minister.”
I looked up at Jake and saw him staring back at me, no doubt slack-jawed at the new and improved version of my former self. Blond hair, spiky stiletto heels and Nina’s miniskirt definitely wasn’t the old mousy me. No, I was a good ten pounds lighter and four inches taller in heels. Between the makeup and the attitude, I was surprised he recognized me at all.
I stared right back at him. He hadn’t changed in all the time I’d been gone. He had the same dark eyes, same killer good looks and probably the same smart-assed attitude. I watched as his gaze shifted to Aunt Lucy. When he smiled gently at her and then winked, I could’ve thrown up. He was wearing faded tight jeans, cowboy boots and a black leather Harley-Davidson jacket. Where was his respect for the dead? And for that matter, if Jake Carpenter had somehow found Jesus, which I seriously doubted, where were his robe and collar?
I leaned over and touched my aunt’s arm. “Aunt Lucy, the last time I checked, Jake was a bartender, not a priest.”
She smiled. “Well now, honey, except for those little two-day Christmas trips of yours, you’ve been gone almost eleven years. A lot happens, especially around here. Jake’s got his own auto body shop. He’s really changed, Stella. He settled down after he got out of the service. He’s found himself.
“He sent off for one of them mail-order certificates. He’s a minister in some nondenominational church, you know, the kind that doesn’t meet and doesn’t have a building.” She held up her hand to cut off my protest. “I know, it sounds funny but, well, he’s here and Father Mark isn’t.”
Aunt Lucy lifted her head defiantly, nodded toward Jake and the service began again.
“Brothers and sisters,” Jake said, his voice rising above the crowd’s murmuring, “let us pray!”
I didn’t even bother to bow my head. Jake Carpenter might be fooling my aunt, but I wasn’t going to fall for his tricks again. Nope. One trip to the altar with Jake Carpenter had been more than enough for me.
Chapter 4
In one short hour, Jake Carpenter managed to take every feeling I’d been harboring about him for eleven years and twist it into a molten mass of confusion and regret. In some ways, he was the same as he’d always been, but with a twist, a difference that was both charismatic and unfathomable.
