Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler [23]
“How’s the tandem-storytelling project going?” I asked.
“Great! I’m learning so much from Ash about voice and style and structure. No one can set a mood like him, and his memorization techniques . . . well, what can I say. He’s just . . . great!” I felt my heart sink. That glow wasn’t from learning storytelling techniques, and I suspected that he was indeed setting a mood—and she was falling right down the rabbit hole for it. I glanced over at him. He was talking to Peter but he must have sensed my scrutiny. He looked up and gave me an amused smile, as if he knew we were discussing him and enjoyed it. I turned back to Dolores, who was pulling out the Historical Society’s book of San Celina pioneer tales.
I finally broke away, using the excuse of company at home. “I’ll see you at the final meeting Wednesday evening,” I told her.
On the way through the museum I ran into Evangeline and D-Daddy deep in conversation. I glided past them, raising my hand in good-bye.
“Benni, wait,” Evangeline called. She said one last thing to her father and met me at the front door. She laid a tentative hand on my shoulder. As big as she was, her touch was as gentle as a butterfly landing. “You did a good job refereeing in there,” she said. “Nora’s . . . well, this whole thing has everyone just a little shaky. But I just wanted to tell you I appreciated how you handled everyone.”
“Thanks,” I said, giving her a rueful smile. “I hope things will be a bit more calmed down by Friday night.”
“Does Gabe have any idea who might have killed her?”
“Not the last time I talked to him. They’re probably doing the autopsy as we speak. They’ll know a lot more after that.”
She gave a small shudder and brushed a dark curl out of her eyes. “Murder’s such a drastic thing.”
“Yes,” I agreed, though I thought the word drastic was an unusual choice. Tragic, horrible, even frightening seemed more appropriate. “I guess someone would have to really be angry to take another human being’s life.”
“Or—”
“Evangeline, chère, come here,” D-Daddy called.
“The captain calls,” she said, smiling. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
As I walked out to my truck I wondered what she was about to say about murder before D-Daddy interrupted her. Did she know something about Nora’s life that might shed some light on who killed her? Evangeline, though joining the co-op only six months before, had become something of a surrogate mother and confidante to many of the artists. I’d even bent her sympathetic ear a time or two when the clashing personalities of the artists had irritated me beyond my ability to keep silent. She had a way of encouraging your most intimate confidences just by the way she concentrated on your every word with her dark consoling eyes.
At the grocery store I walked up and down the aisles trying to figure out what kind of food to feed an eighteen-year-old boy, particularly one I’d only talked to for a couple of minutes. I settled on the basics of boxed granola-style cereal, orange juice, milk, vegetables and fruits, cheese, chicken, spaghetti, and for myself, just to get through an evening promising to be emotional, a box of Ding Dongs. Most of the time Sam would have to fend for himself, or Gabe would have to take him out, because I was busy almost every night through Sunday. Not that it was different from my usual way. Food was something that Gabe and I, along with finances and housing, hadn’t quite worked out in our marriage, though we’d been living together for over seven months. At this point it had been catch-as-catch-can on meals, with the local restaurants profiting. Our finances had settled into a comfortable pattern of him paying the rent and utilities and his own personal bills and me paying my personal bills as well as things like insurance, household repairs, and what food we do keep around the house. But we’d never