Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler [108]
I was so tired when we got home I just crawled into bed, gave Gabe a distracted kiss, and went to sleep. I remembered the homeless man’s keys Sunday morning when I was brushing my teeth. I went into the kitchen all primed to tell Gabe about my theory—until I saw the look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He stared stonily out the kitchen window. “Nothing.”
“So what are you going to do today? Work on your thesis again?”
He shrugged and continued to stare and sip his coffee.
“So, if you aren’t going to work on your thesis, do you want to come to the festival with me?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “You’ll be home before dark tonight, right?”
“Sure, don’t worry about me. I’ll be careful.”
“Maybe I’ll take a drive up the coast, then.” He stood up and started toward our bedroom.
“Wish I could go with you,” I called after him. He didn’t answer. Something had to have happened this morning because he’d been fine last night when he’d come to the festival, even cheerful because he’d written five whole pages on his thesis.
Dove came in dressed for church and started closing her Bibles and reference books, stacking them neatly on the kitchen counter.
“Giving up?” I asked hopefully.
“Not by a long shot,” she said. “I’m taking Mac to lunch after church today so I can pick his brain.” Mac-Kenzie Reid, or Mac as he’d always been called, was our minister at First Baptist. A local boy who’d gone away to play football at Baylor and live in Los Angeles for a while, he was now back shepherding the local Baptist flock. In his early forties, he was big as a grizzly bear, widowed, and so handsome that attendance among single women had tripled since he’d arrived.
“Don’t you think that getting a professional involved is cheating?” I asked. “Sort of like using a ringer?”
“Garnet’s been calling Brother Connors back in Sugartree,” Dove protested. “I can tell.”
“You don’t know that.” By the peeved tone of Dove’s voice, I was safely guessing that Garnet was coming up with some zingers. “Maybe she’s just using all your reference books. Heaven knows, you have enough of them, and they’re all at her disposal.”
Dove’s face blanched. I guess she hadn’t thought of that.
“That settles it, then,” she declared. “Going to Mac will even things out. He’s got a computer program. You just punch in a word, and presto, there’s a verse.”
“Then good luck, I guess.” I picked up the Tupperware container of keys I’d left on the counter last night and contemplated them again. Were they significant? I stuck the container in a drawer. No time to think about it today. The time for that was after this festival was over.
“By the way, did something happen with Sam and Gabe before I got up? Gabe’s in a foul mood, and he won’t give me a clue why.”
Dove’s white eyebrows arched. “Could be that Tribune article from yesterday.”
“He was fine with it yesterday. That’s old news now.”
“Apparently someone left him another copy on the kitchen table this morning—parts about Gabe’s incompetence underlined. He saw it before I could throw it out.”
“Someone who is royally pissed at his dad maybe? Next time I see Sam, he’s really going to get it.”
“Stay out of it, honeybun,” Dove said.
“Why should I?”
“Do you remember that bull we had back in the late eighties, the speckled-face one?”
“Sure, King Arthur.”
“Remember his son? The one with the crooked tail?”
“Lancelot. He was a good bull. Kinda wild, but good.”
“Don’t you remember, though, that we always had to keep three pastures between those two? Never saw two bulls so willing to hurt themselves just to get at each other. It’s ’cause their hormones came from the same pot. They both wanted to rule the roost.”
“I think you’re mixing your animal similes, but I get your drift. But the way we solved it was by selling King Arthur to that guy from Kern County. What am I supposed to do here?”
“Wait. Eventually they’ll work out a pecking order they’re comfortable with. Just takes time.”
In this case I knew I