The Whole Enchilada (6 page)

I looked up and down Marla's street for Holly's vehicle. Marla had said Holly sold the Audis, but what had she bought instead? I finally got the bright idea to press the remote on her key ring. This led me to a dusty-black Honda Civic. I exhaled.

Arch, Julian, and I followed Father Pete, who used his own car to drive Drew. I'd told our priest about the cop needing to be with us, and he nodded sadly.

A prowler flashed its lights at us when we pulled up in front of the Grizzly Saloon, our local watering hole. Father Pete took the lead.

Arch and Julian conversed in low tones. I couldn't talk; I could barely even breathe. I kept seeing Holly's lovely face, her last words:
We'll get together soon, and talk . . .
My heart pounded, and I ordered myself to pay attention to my driving.

Relax,
I told myself.
Relax. Think about something else. Put your attention on anything that will get your mind away from what just happened.

Traffic stopped us in sight of the spillway below Aspen Meadow Lake.
Don't think about Holly,
my mind ordered,
put your attention elsewhere
. I blinked at the hills, thick with evergreens, that rose from the lake's man-made shores. The body of water itself had been formed when engineers constructed a dam separating Upper and Lower Cottonwood Creek. Above the falls, the engineers excavated a meadow. The flooded part became the lake. As a result, the town of Aspen Meadow benefited from a reliable water supply, and summer and winter recreation seekers, as well as tourists, enriched the town's businesses.

A bloop siren from the prowler reminded me I had failed to accelerate when the traffic had cleared. I stepped on the pedal to follow Father Pete.

“Mom?” Arch said. “Do you want Julian or me to drive?”

“No, no, I'm okay.” Which I wasn't. I turned left, then made a quick right behind Father Pete, onto a narrow road.

I frowned. Where the engineers had had to blast the bottom of an actual mountain when they created the lake, they'd left a large cliff overlooking the water. As I followed Father Pete, I realized that was the hill we were driving up. The engineers had, perhaps intentionally, created a cove where, it was rumored, trout liked to hide.

Much-desired sites that truly command vistas of the lake are hard to come by. So I was surprised when we finally finished climbing the winding road to the top of the hill that looked out over the water. The long lake view was stunning. The architect who had designed Holly's rental had been fortunate to find a site with a rock outcropping that formed a thick precipice. Through a series of ingenious outdoor staircases, the architect had even afforded the homeowner a way of getting down to the path that circled the lake. Two dramatic wooden decks were cantilevered out over the water.

Just looking at those protruding structures made me dizzy, and I averted my eyes.

When Julian, Arch, and I got out of the van, Father Pete was holding on to Drew, right in the driveway. Drew, his tall body leaning into Father Pete, was sobbing. The priest gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

The cop was a tall black policewoman named Sergeant Jones. She had a head of black ringlets that didn't seem to go with her being thick and muscular, which she certainly was. I was willing to bet she could take down any criminal, anytime. After she introduced herself to Julian, Arch, and me, she walked over to Father Pete and Drew to do the same. She took the keys I handed her, and she and Drew climbed up to Holly's front porch.

“Poor Drew,” said Arch, his voice low. “I don't know how he's going to make it. He loved his mother so much. Oh, Mom,” he said, and unexpectedly hugged me. And in that gesture, he seemed to say—or maybe it was my imagination—
I know that I can be difficult, but I would miss you so much . . .

I clung to him a moment longer than necessary. When he pulled away, he was looking at the ground.

“It's okay, hon,” I assured him. “Does . . . Drew get along with his dad?”

Arch replied in a low tone, “I suppose.” When I waited, he elaborated. “Drew doesn't talk much about him. But I know you've seen how George comes to all the meets, so it's not like he's, you know, absent. Drew told me that Lena, George's new wife? She's always criticizing him. But his grandmother, his dad's mom, makes up for it by smothering him with love, which drives him just as crazy.”

We arrived on the porch, which was cluttered with lawn furniture. Sergeant Jones was inspecting the front door. She pointed to a panel of buttons. “Was this installed with the house?”

“No,” said Drew, his face blank. He stared at the panel, as if trying to remember the code, or even why we were there. “The architect went bankrupt building the place. No system. But we had a break-in a little over a week ago. Mom insisted the owner pay for a security system to be installed, even though the guy's already reduced the price, and the place is still for sale.”

“You had a break-in,” Sergeant Jones repeated, deadpan. Her large brown eyes regarded Drew. “Did you tell Investigator Schulz about that?”

Drew shook his head. “Nothing was taken, and only a file cabinet was wrecked. But Mom said she had antiques that were more valuable than a bunch of files. There's a panel for the outside, and one right inside the door.” He rummaged through his wallet and handed Sergeant Jones a ragged piece of paper. Sergeant Jones painstakingly entered the exterior numbers—zero-nine-zero-four—and threw open the front door, then entered the second code—zero-four-one-five—inside.

“Everyone wait here,” she ordered us curtly. She drew her weapon, which did not give me a good feeling.

“Wait a minute,” said Drew. He pointed to a large rectangular cardboard box leaning in front of some chairs against the far wall of the porch. “Oh, jeez. That's one of my mother's collages, back from framing.”

“Well,” I began, when no one said anything, “what should we—”

“No, no, no, I don't know what to do with it!” cried Drew. “I don't know what to do with anything!”

I walked over to the box, which was the size of a dining room tabletop, and read the label. It had come that day, addressed to Holly.

Father Pete said mildly, “Not to worry. We'll put it in the living room, in case it rains.” He still had one arm around Drew when Sergeant Jones returned and said the house was clear. Father Pete addressed his remarks to her. “Drew is still leaving for Alaska tomorrow. Investigator Schulz explained to Holly's sister that no arrangements could be made for a memorial service, or anything else, for at least a week. He gave her my number, and she called on our way over here. Drew does not want to stay with a foster family any more time than necessary. So the sister is getting the first flight out of Anchorage. Drew wants to be with his aunt and her husband, the way they planned.” He gave the policewoman a significant look, so she would understand the emotional importance of following this course of action. “Meanwhile, Drew has to finish getting ready for his trip. We're going to sit in the kitchen for a couple of minutes first. Can someone manage the carton?”

“Yes,” said Julian, who was blinking. He had that quirk, opening and closing his eyes quickly, whenever his attention had been derailed and he needed to get it back on track. He picked up the package and shuffled inside with it.

Drew, Sergeant Jones, and Father Pete settled in the kitchen, which caught the last of the light from the setting sun. Bits of their conversation floated out to us in the living room:
Were there relatives or other people to be notified? Did they have a pet to be cared for? Did Holly have end-of-life plans
. . .
?

Arch and I sat uneasily in the living room, which was very neat but was even more cluttered than the porch. In addition to all the furniture from Holly's former spacious home, there were numerous tables and shelves holding religious objects—small, ivory-colored sculpted Madonnas, mounted crystal crosses, tiny wooden statues of saints, ceramic lambs and fish, both symbols for Jesus, and lots of baby Jesuses themselves—plus other items I recognized from Holly's previous residence. We knew Father Pete would call us when we were needed. Julian laid the box against the front wall and mumbled something about asking Drew where Holly's studio was. He returned a moment later, shaking his head.

“Drew says his mother never worked at home, even before they rented this house. She always leased space down in Cherry Creek.” Julian's handsome face contorted in puzzlement. “Does that make sense to you?”

I thought about Holly, about her financial problems, about a recent break-in at this rental, about haggling for a security system, about the price of real estate, any real estate, in that phenomenally expensive part of Denver: Cherry Creek.

I said, “None of this makes sense to me.”

6

J
ulian stared in the direction of the kitchen, where the murmur of Father Pete, Drew, and Sergeant Jones's voices were indistinguishable. After a moment, he sat down beside the china cabinet, on the Bidjar rug covering Holly's living room floor. The rug, which I remembered Holly had inherited from her grandmother, was a gorgeously intricate maroon, navy, and cream design. She'd also inherited the furniture: the cherry end tables and butler's tray, now covered with statuary, plus a china cabinet, whose shelves displayed rows of Holly's plates. I recognized a pattern we'd eaten off of once: “some of Granny's Haviland,” Holly had airily called the dishes, with their sprays of tiny pink flowers on a white background. Interspersed with those plates were others with a religious, specifically a Roman Catholic, theme: an angel on one, a lamb and fish on others. I couldn't bear to look at them, and turned away.

The room was also crowded with pairs of wingback chairs and two love seats, all upholstered in a creamy satin to complement the jewel tones in the rug. The pale beige walls held the oil paintings from her old living room, plus one of her portrait-collages. The brass-and-crystal table lamps looked familiar, as did a square table pushed into one corner. All of this had worked well in the large living room of Holly's big place in Aspen Meadow Country Club. Here, it resembled a jumble sale.

Why, it occurred to me out of nowhere, would a thief want your file cabinet, but not Granny's Haviland or your precious Oriental rug?

I swallowed and sat in one of the chairs. Holly was never going to be back here. She would never sweep in with the energy of a tornado, she would never tell me a joke and fling her blond hair over her shoulders. She would never look with concern, pride, or exasperation at Drew. The realization hit me hard.

Julian got up from the rug and sat gingerly on one of the love seats. As he scanned the room, it seemed his thinking was going along the same lines as mine. I blinked at the Italian oil paintings of bucolic scenes that hung on three of the walls. They were probably copies, but Holly would never . . .

Pull yourself together,
I ordered myself.

In the corner of the room stood that square mahogany table. I noted that it had carved legs. Two dining room chairs had been drawn up to it.

“Boss,” said Julian, “you don't look too good.”

Breathe,
my inner voice commanded.
Get up and move.

With effort, I hauled myself up and walked over to the table. A handmade wooden jigsaw puzzle lay on top, with most of the border done. It looked like one of the puzzles Holly had made for the Montessori school.

The pieces to this one lay about higgledy-piggledy. Had Drew and Holly started on it—it was a colorful map—and just not finished? That would explain why there was no TV in evidence. But Drew and Holly had only gotten so far. This detail of family life, forever unfinished, made my heart lurch.

Arch said he was going upstairs to help Drew pack. I looked over at Julian, who had his lips pressed together and was still glancing nervously around the room. Finally, he said, “If she was having money issues, why not sell some of this stuff? Why did the burglar not take these things?”

“I don't know.”

My gaze fastened on the living room's fourth wall, the one that contained the portrait-collage. Like all of her works, this one contained pieces from the person's life—bits of clothing, mementos, photographs—as well as painted images applied here and there. I walked away from the puzzle table and stepped up close to my old friend's work. The collage was not framed, but hung inside a Plexiglas box. I almost gasped when I realized the subject was Drew, from when he was little.

There were six different squares inside the Plexiglas. They contained two photographs, one of Drew as an infant and one from the time when I remembered him best, as the tyke who loved Hot Wheels. Holly had put one of the miniature cars into a square. Another held a swatch of the denim jacket he was wearing in a birthday-party photo as he proudly held up an empty goldfish bowl that he had just unwrapped. There was also a tiny stuffed gray kangaroo, and a gold-and-blue badge from Scouts. Holly had painted fanciful shapes—blue rams, more angels, and pairs of goldfish—in each of these colors around the squares, pulling them into an aesthetic whole. Tears bit the back of my eyes.

I fumbled in my pants for a tissue. The piece looked vaguely familiar. Had I seen it before? I couldn't remember. Probably I had, when I'd visited Holly's country-club house, after she'd started making the collages. I blew my nose and again ordered myself to get my act together.

Julian came over to stand next to me. “Are you all right?”

“Not at the moment. But I'm going to be. We have to help Drew.”

Julian leaned in close to the collage. He whispered, “This is Drew, isn't it?”

“Yes.”

I glanced at Drew, who was looking disconsolate as he stood next to Sergeant Jones. He was emptying his pockets. I caught a bit of what he was saying, something about needing to wash his shorts before he could finish packing. Arch called from upstairs, asking if Drew was taking fishing gear to Alaska.

While Drew and Sergeant Jones ascended the stairs to join Arch, Father Pete lumbered back toward Julian and me. At the sight of him, I reminded myself,
You're here to help. Remember?

What could I do? Well, there was the box with the framed collage. What about asking Father Pete if it was ethically okay to open it? What if it did indeed contain a collage that someone was expecting to be delivered? Wouldn't that help with the money Drew was sure to need?

Father Pete said, “Drew's aunt got a flight. She has a layover in Spokane, but that shouldn't be too bad. Drew has his ticket. He's supposed to stay at his aunt and uncle's cabin for a week. George already gave his notarized consent. Drew is still torn. I told him he should go, that it was the normal thing he would have done, and that being with Holly's sister would bring him comfort. I didn't say that it'd be better than moping around here, imagining an autopsy on his beloved mother.” Father Pete's wide brow wrinkled. “Drew most definitely does
not
want to stay with George, Lena, and Edith. The mother from the foster family is on her way here.” He fingered a piece of paper. “Drew gave me a list of people to call. The only immediate problem is that Holly was supposed to give Drew cash for the Alaska trip, and she hadn't done that yet. Drew doesn't know Holly's ID number for the ATM. He's a minor, and doesn't have power of attorney, so he can't get a new one. He's adamant about not asking George for cash.” Father Pete shook his head. “He won't tell me what the financial bad blood is between his mother and father. He's so vulnerable at this point, I'm not going to press it.”

“I will—” Julian began, but Father Pete stopped him by holding up his hand, which resembled a bear's paw.

“Back in the old days,” Father Pete went on, almost apologetically, “I could have given, or at least loaned, Drew money from my discretionary fund. But with so many priests using their discretionary funds to send themselves to Europe or to buy new Volvos, now the government says all funds in those accounts have to go to the genuinely, verifiably poor. I'm pretty sure Drew and Holly are not actually poverty-stricken, even if they were going through a bad patch. I know
George
doesn't have financial issues—”

“I'll give Drew money,” Julian piped up.

“So will Tom and I,” I said. “How much are we talking about?”

“Let me do it!” Julian said, his grief momentarily flashing as anger. Julian had inherited money that he seemed hardly ever to use, except when his friends needed to be bailed out of a fix. And the IRS wasn't asking questions. “How much does he need?”

“About a thousand,” Father Pete said, his tone still remorseful.

“No sweat,” said Julian.

I said, “Why don't I give him five hundred, and you can do the other five?”

Julian rubbed his now-scruffy chin. “I'll tell you why not. It takes forever to settle an estate these days, what with filing a will, going through probate, you name it. So a year or more could pass before you're paid back. And with Arch going off to college next year—”

“Rather than you two arguing over who gets to be more charitable,” Father Pete interrupted, “I'm making an executive decision that Julian will give him the money.”

“Good,” said Julian. “I have my checkbook right here.” He drew a checkbook and pen out of one of his deep pockets and began writing furiously.

Father Pete waited until Julian had ripped the check out and handed it to him. Then our priest said, too casually, “Julian, why don't you go upstairs with the boys and the sergeant, and help Drew pack? He said all he's done is get the suitcase down. He also needs to get his phone and charger, finish his laundry, find his hiking boots, and pull together whatever else you, he, and Arch think he'll need for a fishing trip in Alaska. Goldy and I can go out to the kitchen to discuss arrangements for Holly.”

I shook my head vigorously. I did
not
want to talk about arrangements for Holly.

“What about this box?” I asked. “Drew said it was a collage for one of Holly's clients.” I glanced over at the carton. From not far away, the washing machine began to chug. When someone dies, survivors have to deal with the minutiae left behind by the deceased: with their children's laundry, with their paperwork, with planning a liturgy. Sometimes these tasks can be comforting. Other times, they send survivors like yours truly into a state of bewilderment. Beside me, Julian, too, seemed frozen.

I'd become fixated on the box simply because it seemed like something we could
figure out
. If Drew was going to be gone for a week, shouldn't we open it to see who was supposed to get it?

“I'll ask Drew about it,” I said.

“Let Julian do that, Goldy,” Father Pete said gently. “Please, come out to the kitchen with me. You could help by cleaning out Holly's refrigerator. If no one is going to be here for a week, food shouldn't be left to spoil. Then you and I can talk about pulling together a memorial service, for when Drew gets back.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling unsure. But Father Pete was right. I needed to do something with my hands.

“First?” said Father Pete, once he was settled in a kitchen chair. “Could you see if Holly has some of the bourbon I had the last time I was here? It's in the pantry.” He took a deep breath. “Just because I see death often doesn't mean I'm used to it. Strokes, heart attacks, cancer in the young, it happens more than you'd think. Plus, Holly was so kind, so funny . . .”

He didn't need to finish the thought. I located a small bottle of Kentucky's signature liquor in Holly's pantry and poured Father Pete what he asked for: an inch of bourbon with no ice, no water, and for heaven's sake, he added, no ginger ale. I poured myself a tiny bit of the golden liquid and without thinking slugged it down. It hit my brain like fire.

While Father Pete sipped, I opened Holly's refrigerator. It contained very little: only two opened packages of supermarket cheese; one cheddar, one Swiss, both well wrapped in plastic. A quart of milk felt half empty, ditto a pint of supermarket-brand cottage cheese. The crisper held only a quarter of a head of iceberg lettuce. I guess when you lose your house, you also lose the Brie, the Gruyère, the asparagus, the strawberries, and the fresh fish you always swore by.

Father Pete finished his whiskey and asked me to give him a refill. I'd never seen him have more than a single drink over the course of an entire evening. As he started on his second, he asked if I knew what hymns Holly liked.

“Hymns?” I chucked the cheeses into the trash. “I don't have a clue.”

Father Pete fretted. “This is why people should plan. It's good we're having that dinner. The music director will be making a presentation.”

I took a deep breath. I couldn't think that far ahead.

I poured the milk down the drain and put all the rest of the refrigerator contents in a large plastic bag that I tied shut and took out to the garage. There, I unfastened the chains on a wheeled bear-proof trash can. With all the bears raiding our neighborhoods, the Denver outfit retrofitting trash containers with hooks and chains must be making a mint. I unfastened the clips and dropped the bag into the half-full can, then dragged the thing to the curb.

Without forethought, I sat down on the pavement. I felt Holly's passing now like the unexpected ocean waves that used to knock me down when I was a kid. Instead of a mouthful of grit, I felt dizzy. Maybe I shouldn't have had the bourbon. Maybe I should have had some more. I ordered myself to get up and go back into the house.

Back in the kitchen, Father Pete was refilling his glass. When he saw me, his large face reddened. He began to talk about the readings for the Burial of the Dead, Rites I and II. Was this the way he dealt with his own grief? I wondered.

I was fidgety and simply could not listen. I opened the freezer. It held only frozen spinach, peas, and beans, all supermarket brand, and frozen chicken thighs that had been divided into freezer bags. From the quantities, I guessed Holly had bought everything in there on sale.

Questions about Holly's financial situation niggled at the edges of my brain. Marla hadn't known anything apart from the fact that Holly had lost her house in the country club. Our friend hadn't had time to share what was going on. I saw her pretty face again, heard her earnest words:
We'll get together soon, and talk . . .

Did Drew know what was going on with Holly's finances? Or had he just picked up on the animosity between his parents, and didn't want to agitate George or Lena? I doubted that he knew the particulars. I'd learned from experience that the last thing you wanted to trouble a child of divorce with were discussions of your financial problems.