Beware False Profits Part 28

"No, he was here." She launched into a moment-by-moment replay of my husband's day.

Norma is harmless, and except for the incessant chatter, she's an excellent secretary. I think she's something of a project for Ed, who's sure he can teach her to say less and more at the same time. Ed's all about transformation.

I've learned to interrupt, although it doesn't come naturally. I balanced the box carefully on the edge of her desk and waved my hand to stop her. "Would you mind opening the Women's Society closet for me? I've got the punch bowl."

I said this so naturally, so casually, that she didn't even blink.

"No problem. Follow me."

She continued the recital on the way. Ed would have nothing left to tell me tonight, but I didn't care. Norma was going to open the closet.

Most of the time when people expect to see one thing, they don't notice it's something else entirely.

I told the annoying voice inside my head to be quiet so I could hear Norma, a demand I had never expected to make.

We reached the closet, and she opened it. I set the box down carefully. Lightning did not strike. An earthquake didn't rumble through the building. The ceiling didn't cave in on top of it.

I stepped back; Norma locked the door. That was that.

Norma wasn't finished. I stood there quietly exultant and listened as penance.

"You have an amazing memory for detail," I said, when she stopped long enough to draw another breath. "You remember every nuance of every moment. I don't think I've ever met anybody who pays that much attention to everything around her."

Her mouth dropped open. "Really?"

"Really, it's amazing. How do you do it?"

"What can I say? I grew up on a wheat farm in South Dakota, a place where nothing big ever happened. When I was little I realized that the only things around me that ever changed were little things. So I started noticing them. That way time didn't seem to stand still."

I was touched. And didn't that explain a lot? Here was a woman with almost total recall. Growing up, had anyone been interested enough in details to listen to her observations? Maybe Norma was just making up for lost time.

"I wish I paid half as much attention to things as you do." My poor overheated brain was trying to tell me something, and I stopped a moment. I realized what it was.

"Listen, Norma, something's bothering me. Maybe you can help. Would you mind trying?"

She looked so pleased. I had never realized that under the gla.s.ses and the extra pounds and the hair that got gradually darker at the tips from a bad dye job, that Norma had the makings of an attractive woman. She had great skin. A beauty queen's nose. And a pretty smile.

I rushed on, glad that I'd made her happy but not taking any chances she'd start to chatter again.

"At the memorial service for Chad Sutterfield, his parents placed photographs on a table in the social hall. Childhood photos of him. Do you remember?"

"Sure. I was in there to make sure everything ran smoothly."

I didn't even have to cut her off. She was waiting for me to continue. This was fun. A real conversation.

"Well, I keep thinking that something went wrong," I said. "But I don't know why I think so, or what it might have been. I keep seeing those photographs in my mind. They just keep nagging at me. Am I imagining it?"

"Maybe you're thinking about the one that disappeared."

I waited, on full alert now. "Disappeared?"

"Right. The picture of him on a horse. It was there when I left for the church, and it was gone when I came back. I noticed somebody was over there moving photographs around to cover up the gap. That pretty woman with the short dark hair? The tall one who smells like jasmine?"

Cilla. I remembered now that Cilla had repositioned the photographs, as if she was trying to keep her hands busy when she was feeling so many strong emotions.

Cilla, who'd disliked Chad to the point of hatred. Cilla, who had gone to bed with Chad before she understood what kind of man he was. Cilla, who was certain that Chad wanted Joe's job.

"Why would she want that photo?" I asked out loud, although I didn't expect Norma to have an answer. "A memento?"

"I don't remember any way she could have hidden it. She wasn't wearing a jacket. She was wearing a sundress, remember? Navy, with lighter blue flowers down the front? Nothing to disturb the line of it, no pockets."

"Maybe she got rid of the picture before we got there?"

"No, I'm almost sure I came back before she did. A minute or two before the service was over. I was worried about the caterer."

"Did the Sutterfields say anything about the missing photograph?"

"They were so upset, I doubt they even noticed. Of course, maybe they removed it themselves when I wasn't there. But I don't think so, because they had people around them all the time." Norma's eyes brightened. "We can ask January if he found anything in the trash."

"You mean like a photo or frame?"

"He emptied the trash after the service."

"Is he here?"

"No, he's gone home. Would you like me to call him?"

Norma was definitely improving, but I hated to sic her on January. On the other hand, I didn't have another drop of energy left. I was running on fumes.

"Would you?" I squeezed out my last smile. "You'll call me if he has anything interesting to say?"

"I sure will."

She chattered as she saw me to the door, but I had a new appreciation for Norma, and even this didn't spoil it.

"Thanks for letting me help," she said before she closed the door.

"The pleasure is mine." And now I was vaguely ashamed. Because in the same way I had decided Maura was hopeless, from the beginning, I had discounted Norma, too.

I told the voices in my head to take a rest. I hadn't been as generous toward Norma as I should have been, but in the future I would try harder. Meanwhile I had found and returned the punch bowl. I had discovered why I'd been bothered last night by a mental slide show of Chad Sutterfield as a boy. And I had made a connection between Cilla's actions at the memorial service and the disappearance of the photograph. Pretty good for somebody who was looking at life and death through a head filled with seaweed.

I started for my van, for home, for my bed and a long, dreamless nap. I got the house and the bed. I even got the nap.

But dreamless wasn't in the cards.

19.

Early Friday afternoon I saw my doctor. My memories of the night before were vague. When I slept, I slept sitting up. Breathing was hard enough that I considered going cold turkey. Ed kept me pumped full of liquids and Tylenol to keep my temperature down, and we had conversations about whether I should go the doctor in the morning or the emergency room right away. But a call to the hospital rea.s.sured us that a virus with flulike symptoms was making the rounds, and we were already doing what we needed to.

The doctor prescribed heavy-duty cold and cough meds and took a chest X-ray. I was ordered to bed before my symptoms degenerated into pneumonia and told that under no circ.u.mstances was I to go to Teddy's play tonight and contaminate the audience.

Ed brought me home, promised to fill the prescription after a late afternoon meeting, and settled me on the sofa with a thermos of juice, the phone, and the television remote. Junie would be home not long after the girls arrived. I wasn't to do anything but get better.

My head hurt too badly to read, and despite feeling giddy with exhaustion, I couldn't sleep. I kept the television off since even on good days I've been known to contact alien life-forms simply by pressing Menu or Mute on the remote.

This left puzzles to solve, and not sudoku or the Flow's daily crossword. The puzzle of why Cilla might have taken a photo from the memorial table. The puzzle of when and how. Whether she had told me the truth about her feelings for Chad. How or if she was involved in the fire or Chad's death.

When the telephone rang I still wasn't getting close to an answer. Norma was on the other end. She had talked to January, and yes, he had seen a picture frame and gla.s.s in the trash but no, he couldn't tell her where it had originated. He thought it might have come from one of the restrooms.

I called Lucy, but I got her voice mail. I pressed the number to page her and got a window cleaning service. When I called back to leave a message, I was offered a time-share in Cancun. At least that's my best guess, judging from the mariachi band in the background.

Cilla and I weren't yet friends. I decided to take a chance on losing a future filled with shopping trips and daring hair appointments. I called information and let them dial the food bank.

I was transferred twice, but eventually Cilla picked up.

I went through the polite formalities. I suspected she was hoping I had information to share about Joe, because she almost sounded breathless.

"I need your help," I said cutting through the chitchat. "We've discovered something odd, Cilla, and you might know more than we do." I launched into the explanation about the missing photo of Chad on horseback and the discarded picture frame. Then I waited.

"I never saw it," she said.

"You were at the table when I spoke to you, rearranging the photos. I just thought-"

"What did you think? That I wanted a memento of that creep?" She paused. "Okay, it's not nice to talk that way about the dead. But you're seriously p.i.s.sing me off."

"I'm just trying to figure out why the photograph was removed."

"I got there and noticed a gap. Call it nervous energy, but I just moved things around to distribute them better. And maybe to say a private good-bye, although it was more like good riddance."

I don't know why, but I believed her. Now I was sorry I'd made her angry.

I put my thoughts together out loud. "So we know that while we were at the service, somebody came in and took it. Because by the time you got there, it was already gone."

"Why do you care anyway?"

I didn't answer, because I was thinking back on the service and the people in attendance. Someone could have walked in off the street, of course, but now I remembered that one person in attendance had left for a few minutes in the midst of a coughing spell.

Maura.

"Aggie, I asked why you care!"

I pulled myself together. "Look, I'm sorry I ever wondered if you might have something to do with the photograph. I believe you. But you can help in another way. Can you tell me what kind of relations.h.i.+p Chad had with Maura?"

Now she was silent. I wondered if she was planning how to slam down the receiver to best effect, or if she was simply thinking.

"I never saw any sign of friends.h.i.+p," she said at last. "I can't remember ever witnessing them in a private conversation, or even acting like they wanted one. They were polite. But..."

"Go on please."

"I think a strong suspicion Chad wanted Joe's job was one of the few things Maura and I had in common."

That was nothing new. "Okay."

But Cilla continued. "She kept an eye on him, you know? Like she didn't trust him. Maybe even more than I didn't trust him."

Still nothing new.

She wasn't finished. "And once she told me she married Joe because he only saw the good in people, but sometimes that meant he didn't see what was right under his nose."

"Those were her words?"

"It seemed a little odd, but I figured she was talking about Chad wanting Joe's job. Maybe she was suspicious all along that Chad was up to no good, and Joe wouldn't listen to her. You should ask her."

"I might." I thanked her and hung up.

Had Maura suspected that Chad was stealing from the food bank? Had she warned Joe?

Had she stolen the photograph?

I was contemplating these questions when Teddy arrived home. She knew better than to crawl into my lap, but she came into the living room and we gave each other pretend hugs from across the room.

"How was the play?" I croaked. "Did Rene remember all her lines?"

"She was good. And she was happy."

I was sorry I couldn't hug my daughter for real, because I was so proud of her. "Did you feel a little sad it wasn't you onstage?"

"No. Miss Hollins let me sit up close so I could help with lines if Rene forgot. It was almost like being in the play." She beamed as she lifted herself on tippy-toe. "And I get to be Cinderella tonight, so I kept remembering that."

I pretended to hug her again. Once we put Jennifer Hollins in the loop, she'd come up with the perfect solution to Teddy's dilemma. From the beginning, two performances had been scheduled. One this afternoon for the students, and one tonight for parents and friends. So Rene had been asked to play Cinderella for the matinee, and Teddy for the evening performance. Two gla.s.s slippers, two little girls happy with the decision. One young teacher showing what she was really made of.

And wouldn't it be great if all moral dilemmas were so easily solved?

"You can't go tonight can you?" Teddy asked.

"I'm going to have to watch the videotape. I'm so sorry."

"I'll talk extra loud so you can hear me."

Deena came home and without being prompted, helped Teddy get a snack. Then she came into the living room and stood where Teddy had. "Can I go to the library with Tyler in a little while?"