Fool's Puzzle by Earlene Fowler (reading eggs books .TXT) 📕

Just being contrary is what Dove would say. What I would say was I was sick and tired of being ordered around by this guy.

“Look,” he said, his voice going into the dry-ice stage. “I want you out of my sight. I’m so angry at you right now, I don’t know what I’ll do. I suggest you stop arguing with me while I’m still rational.”

“Fine. But do you plan on showing up at six tomorrow morning to set up for the festival?”

“I’ll drop the keys off in your mailbox when we’re done.”

“You don’t know where I live.”

He looked at me with disdain.

“Right,” I mumbled. I took the keys to the museum off my key ring and threw them on the counter.

I picked up my quilt and walked out, acutely aware of his frigid stare and the embarrassed looks of the officers working on the scene.

Grabbing the Levi jacket lying across the front seat of the truck, I slipped it on, not gaining much comfort from the cold, damp cotton. The image of Eric’s body flashed through my mind, and the implication of it was so overwhelming, I didn’t know what to do. When I reached my rented house and pulled into the driveway, a sudden feeling of alienation and fear struck me and I wanted to be someplace familiar, someplace from the past. It was too late to drive out to the ranch, so I threw the truck in reverse and drove downtown to a place guaranteed to be both familiar and open.

11

A STRAWBERRY MALT on a cold November morning is not physically soothing no matter what personal history is attached to it.

Liddie’s Cafe was almost empty since most students had left for the holiday and the two A.M. bar rush was still an hour away. My waitress, a young brunette with a bottle-brush hairdo and long pumpkin-colored nails, didn’t blink twice when I ordered two large strawberry malts. Working this shift, she’d probably seen stranger.

Pulling my Levi jacket close around me, I stretched my legs lengthwise across the red vinyl bench seat and rested the back of my head against the icy window. I closed my eyes and wondered if anyone would care if I stayed there forever. My waitress checked back once. Twice. Then left me alone. I drifted in and out of that lazy dreaminess overly warm rooms and indistinct conversations bring on. The voices swelled around me, becoming louder, more animated as the bars closed and people continued their partying over breakfast.

“I thought I told you to go home.” Keys clattered across the table.

I took my time opening my eyes. Ortiz stood at the end of the booth, hands in his pockets, tie pulled loose and crooked, deep shadows under squinting blue eyes that seemed naked and vulnerable without his glasses. The dark stubble sprouting along his jaw line gave his face a faintly criminal cast.

“Contrary to what you’d prefer,” I said, “this city is not under martial law and I am old enough to be out after curfew.” I grabbed the museum’s keys and stuck them in my pocket.

“It’s dangerous for a woman to be out alone this time of night.”

“This isn’t L.A., and even if it was, where I go and when really isn’t any business of yours.”

“Robbery, assault and rape exist even here and, unfortunately, that is my business,” he said, his jaw setting stubbornly.

“Get lost,” I replied.

“Look, I realize I overreacted. I’m sorry. But what did you expect? I go up and there’s this body—”

“Which I keep telling you I knew nothing about, and sorry doesn’t begin to cover it. You’ve acted like some kind of Nazi general from the beginning of this whole thing.”

“And you’ve interfered from the beginning. Withholding information, witnesses, evidence—”

“Look, in the last four days you have lectured me four times. I don’t want or need another one. I am sick of—”

“Good.” He slid into the seat across from me. “So am I.”

“Hit the road, Sergeant Friday. This isn’t a television show. I don’t have to talk to you.”

My spike-haired waitress walked up, a pleased smile curving her pale tangerine lips.

“So your guy finally made it,” she said. “You all done there?” She gestured at my empty glass.

“Take both of them.” I shoved the untouched strawberry malt toward her. “And no, my guy didn’t make it. He died nine months ago.” I looked at Ortiz. “But then you already know that. You know everything, right?”

Her eyes darted to Ortiz, who shook his head slightly, then back at me. She pursed her lips, picked up the glasses.

“Anything for you, sir?”

“Coffee.” He settled in, stretching his arm across the back of the seat, loosening his tie more. “Look, I said I was sorry. What more can I do? And my name is Gabriel. Gabe.”

I leaned my head back against the window and closed my eyes, hoping if I ignored him, he’d go away. Minutes passed. The swish-swish of the waitress’s nylons, the clink of cup against saucer, the acidic scent of strong coffee told me he wasn’t leaving. Inhaling the steam of his coffee, I imagined how it might warm the lump behind my breastbone, a lump as hard and cold as a hailstone.

“I am sorry,” he said, softer this time. “About tonight. About your husband. I didn’t know until a little while ago how he died. Officer Aragon told me. It must be tough.”

The image of Eric’s body, lack of sleep, the unexpected kindness in his voice, or maybe a combination of all three, caused moist heat to burn in the back of my eyes. Tears formed in the corners but I held back, my throat aching with the effort. I had to do something—scream, curse, throw his coffee mug across the room, run out. But they all seemed to take so much effort. So I kept my eyes closed and talked.

“Jack loved strawberry malts. One time, when we were sixteen, he drank four in a row. His father had grounded him for cutting algebra, so