Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler [107]
“Garnet’s gonna love that one,” I muttered. I wondered if it occurred to Dove that the quote could easily be thrown back at her. My eyes traveled down the page, perusing the subject headings. One intrigued me, and I read the four listings under the word.
Key (Keys): “Isaiah 33:6—The fear of the Lord is the key/Revelation 20:1—having the key to the Abyss/Matthew 16:19—I will give you the keys to the kingdom/Revelation 1:18—And I hold the keys of death.”
Keys, I thought, pouring my milk in a mug. I looked down into it, staring at the light reflections in the whiteness. Why did that strike something in me? Keys. What do they do? They unlock things. Actually, they unlock places where people keep things. Things they think are important. Things they want to hide. Things they want to save.
Keys. Then it occurred to me. The Tupperware container of keys I found in the homeless man’s duffel bag. His daily routine. A routine that made me think before that maybe he’d seen something. Or found something. Something he kept. I went outside to the truck and brought the container of keys into the kitchen. There seemed to be at least fifty, maybe more—all shapes and sizes. Staring at them, I drank my milk and wondered if they opened anything of significance. When I crawled back in bed, Gabe stirred.
“Everything all right?” he muttered, curling himself around me.
“Fine,” I whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
Keys, I thought drowsily as the warm milk started working. Just before I fell asleep, the last line of the Bible index, the one from Revelation, floated back to me. “I hold the keys of death.”
For one foreboding moment, a tiny icicle of fear pierced my heart.
12
THE NEXT MORNING Dove handed me the Saturday Tribune . “You and Sam made front page.”
I glanced at the article in the lower right hand side. POLICE CHIEF’S WIFE AND SON ATTACKED AT THURSDAY NIGHT FARMERS’ MARKET. Fortunately there was yet another budget crisis going in Washington, so we didn’t make the bold, black headline.
“Has Gabe seen it?” I asked apprehensively.
“Yes, he has,” he answered, walking into the kitchen. “Don’t worry about it.” He opened the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of grapefruit juice. His casual acceptance of the probably negative article made me suspicious, but I didn’t press it. Maybe he was learning to accept the fact that he and I were destined to be one of San Celina’s more colorful and controversial couples.
“Are you coming to the festival with me?” I asked.
“No, I’m going to work on the thesis-with-no-end,” he said, pouring a glass of juice. “I’ll drop by later on this afternoon. I don’t want you alone after dark.”
On Saturday everything went by without a major hitch. I nervously attended both Peter and Roy’s performances. They kept their word to me and didn’t cause any trouble. Ash and Dolores’s San Celina historical stories were naturally a big hit. They were a wonderful storytelling team, with an instinctive ability to read each other’s cues and follow each other’s rhythms. I was glad that Jillian was at the horse show in Santa Barbara today so she couldn’t see how attractive they looked together. Dolores’s scary story about La Llarona came back to me, and I couldn’t help but wonder if sooner or later that little triangle was going to explode. The fact that my cousin Rita was smack dab in the middle of it didn’t make my heart sing. Maybe I should try to hunt Skeeter down and let him know what was going on here.
Maybe you ought to just mind your own business, a little voice said as I walked into my office. Let these people work out their own problems. You’ve got a festival to get through, a household of people to get rid of, and a husband who is teetering on the edge of an emotional abyss. Rita and Skeeter’s love life should be the least of your worries.
Gabe showed up promptly at dusk and tagged after me like a trained guard dog. We left at nine that evening when I found