Goose in the Pond - Earlene Fowler [82]
I gave him a dirty look.
“When are you going to learn not to try to pull things over on me?” Gabe said, his voice dramatically weary. “I always find out.”
“Arrogance is such an obnoxious trait.”
He leaned down and kissed me. “There are times when my arrogance melts you.”
“Trust me, Friday, this isn’t one of them.”
“The note, please.”
I pulled it out of my back pocket and handed it to him. His expression turned cold.
“Who have you been talking to?”
“No one!”
He held up the note and wiggled it.
“I swear, I’ve hardly talked to anyone about Nora’s death. I’ve done practically everything but wear a sandwich sign saying ‘I don’t know anything about this case.’ I’ve maybe said a few things in passing to people, but honestly, I haven’t gone out of my way to investigate this.”
He looked at me silently for a moment, contemplating and processing the information I’d just given him. “You’re telling the truth,” he concluded.
I moaned in exasperation. “Of course I am. I hid the note because I just didn’t want everyone to know about it. It would’ve somehow gotten in the papers, and that would give the person who did it even more power. I was going to show it to you, really I was.”
He gave me a dubious look and looked down at the small piece of paper, rubbing his thumb across it. “You know, this time you might be right. If what you say is true—”
I growled deep in my throat.
“Okay, okay, sorry. As I was saying, since you haven’t really been asking questions about Nora’s death, this might be intended for me.”
“You?”
“What better way to divert my attention from investigating the Cooper homicide than giving me something more important to worry about—the safety of my wife.”
“It sounds like something one of the storytellers might say, don’t you think?”
He read the note again. “It’s from The New England Primer. But it’s been changed. The actual quote is, ‘Our days begin with trouble here, Our life is but a span, And cruel death is always near, so frail a thing a man.’ ”
“How do you know that?” I said.
He smiled slightly. “My mother’s a teacher, remember? She made us memorize poetry. It’s from the same book as ‘Now I lay me down to sleep. . . . ’ ”
“That was the first prayer I ever learned.”
He peeked out into the dark street, his face sober. “Let’s go inside.”
“You two done squabbling?” Dove said from her place on the couch.
“We weren’t fighting,” I said.
“And my peas are coming up purple this year,” she said.
“We’ll finish our discussion later, querida,” Gabe said, kissing the top of my head. “Buenas noches, abuelita,” he called to Dove.
“Good night, sweetie,” she said.
I flopped down next to her on the couch. “Speaking of fights, how’s the Battle of the Bible Verses doing? Who’s ahead, the Bruins or the Razorbacks?”
“Hmmph,” she said, sitting back. “You know what she did today? She called me an old woman. Said an old woman like me shouldn’t be wearing pigtails.” Dove grabbed her long white braid and shook it at me. “Does this look like pigtails to you? And who’s that old woman calling an old woman?”
“Has she heard anything from Uncle W.W.?” I asked, knowing Dove’s questions were purely rhetorical.
“No, and I think the woman has gone completely batty. You know, he was the only thing all these years that kept her from going over the edge. Ben called today and said she’s rearranged all the living-room furniture. Twice. He’s afraid to get up and pee at night, fearing he’ll break his neck ’cause she’s changed the coffee table while he was sleeping.”
“And you’re letting her get away with it?” I asked. “In your house? Boy, I sure wouldn’t if she were my sister.”
She gave me a dark, raptorlike look.
Whoops, overkill, I thought as I tried to smile innocently.
“Some things are more important than material possessions,” she said disdainfully. “I told you, I’m not going home until she apologizes. Now, get on