Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler [12]
The basement coffeehouse, lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves packed with used books free for the borrowing, was crowded for a Sunday. The antique mantel clock on the Hemingway shelf had both hands lifted in surrender, reminding me of my promise to bring Gabe lunch. I ordered an avocado, Jack cheese, and alfalfa sprout on cracked wheat bread and scanned the chattering crowd for Elvia. She sat in a back corner at one of the round oak tables, her dark head bent over three-inch thick sheaves of computer printouts. Though she had a beautiful office upstairs complete with French Country antique furniture, all the latest computer equipment, and soundproofing, she still preferred to do much of her paperwork downstairs in the coffeehouse. She claimed the noisy conversations relaxed her, that complete silence was too distracting after all those years living with six brothers.
“No rest for the wicked, huh?” I flopped down on one of the oak ladder-back chairs she’d purchased for a song when they refurnished the new library. The only way you could tell it was her day off was she wasn’t wearing one of her many Chanel-Armani-Donna Karan power suits. Instead she wore black leggings, Italian leather flats, and a flowing café au lait silk blouse that probably cost more than my truck’s new clutch.
“Hermana gringa, you have no idea. What’s up? I thought you and tu esposo el chota were out building lung capacity this morning.”
“I’ll have you know I jogged a whole mile and a half.”
“And?” Her liquid voice held a hint of laughter.
“Is it too late for an annulment?” I asked with a dramatic groan.
She pointed a French-manicured nail at me. “I warned you about getting hitched up with a Latino man. They want to run your life like they’re five-star generals and you’re a buck private with no chance of advancement. Not to mention he’s a cop. And a cop in management.”
“Ah, he’s not that bad,” I said, grinning. “Besides, I never could resist being sweet-talked in Spanish.”
“Tramp,” she said, taking a sip of her iced cappuccino. “You just married him for the great sex.”
“Shh,” I said, putting my finger over my lips. “He thinks I married him for his fascinating personality and government pension.”
She rolled her luminous black eyes, and we were both giggling when José, Blind Harry’s cook, brought over my order and told Elvia briefly that they were running low again on almond-flavored Tortani syrup.
“Double the order next time,” she told him, then raised her eyebrows at me. “What’s with the food to go?”
I stopped laughing, suddenly feeling guilty for making jokes after having discovered only hours earlier the body of someone I’d known and liked. But as Gabe once said, people joked automatically to protect themselves. Especially those who saw man’s inhumanity to man on a regular basis.
“If cops didn’t,” he’d told me, “they wouldn’t last a year. That’s why you hear so much grotesque humor at crime scenes. If any of us contemplated emotionally at the moment what really happened and how it could happen to us or to someone we love, we’d end up eating our guts or our guns.” His blue-gray eyes turned dark with sadness. “Some cops lose that ability to disengage, and that’s what they do. Too many.”
Elvia’s face instantly sobered. “Benni, what’s wrong?”
I hugged myself, running my hands up and down my upper arms, trying to smooth out the gooseflesh. “You remember Nora Cooper, don’t you?”
Her brows furrowed in concentration,