Hanged by a thread, p.12
Hanged by a Thread, page 12
Santiago smiled when he saw my set-up, and Dad patted my shoulder when he passed Sawyer over to me when they arrived before they headed down the hill to Sawyer’s playground. Lucille stopped, picked up a notepad, and said, “Where do you need me most?”
“If you could help us but also help with Sawyer if Dad needs you, that would be great.” I felt a little bit like I needed to take charge of something here, and if Lucille was willing to take direction, I was going to give it.
“Absolutely,” she said, “Just point me to where we begin.”
“You need pictures of everything in my car?” I asked Santiago.
“Yep. Then we can unload.” The three of us headed to the car, and Santiago snapped his pictures.
We unloaded the printing press first, and I took a few pictures myself before I asked Lucille to begin looking up similar machines and sales prices. She was a whiz with details, and I knew she’d find the information in no time.
Meanwhile, Santiago and I unloaded all the boxes of books, six in total, and set them up on the table. Sawyer stopped by, saw it was just “grown-up books” as he calls them, and returned to the swings, where Dad was waiting to push him as high as the trees.
I began by creating stacks of various titles as I sorted through each box. We found a couple of beautiful short story collections and a wonderful cookbook for a local church, complete with hand-drawn illustrations for several of the dishes. There was even a beautifully printed program for a garden club tour back in 2009. The cover featured bright circles of pink, yellow, and green, and the inside had full-cover prints of some of the oldest houses in Octonia. I knew immediately that Ms. Nicholas would like some copies for the historical society because of the object itself but also because of the descriptions of the houses that were included.
When we came to the box full of the lavender books filled with what I now knew to be Celeste’s poetry, I paused, full of reverence and anxiety. These books held the thoughts she most wanted the world to know, and I wanted to treasure them in this simple form of ink on paper.
Lucille, Santiago, and I silently unboxed the five dozen books and spread them gently on the table. Then, I opened the first page and read:
* * *
A four-petaled, blue flower
Is named purple by casual observers,
The man in the tweed newsboy hat,
The person in suspenders so red they make cardinals look pale.
* * *
But she calls herself Blue,
And she is right. Always.
Even when she grows on into green.
* * *
I sighed as I put the book back on the table. I knew four-petaled, blue flowers – the periwinkle at the edge of my yard – and I knew some people called it purple. I understood this, and so I understood, in some tiny way, Celeste.
“She wanted to be heard,” Lucille said.
I sighed. “She did. And she will be.” I looked down at the copies of the book on the table. “She will be.”
* * *
We didn’t find anything, beyond the copies of Celeste’s books, that was relevant to her case, so we began to catalog what we had. Lucille had discovered that the model of press I had brought home was worth about four hundred dollars, and that was exciting news. I figured that if the books sold as a lot, I might make another two-fifty. So the prospect of having almost another month’s mortgage lifted my spirits a bit.
But I wasn’t going to include Celeste’s books in that lot. I had the beginnings of another plan for those. I wasn’t ready to talk about that yet. So I suggested we get pizza instead.
In my life experience, most people appreciate the simplicity and versatility of pizza. Lucille preferred a gluten-free crust, and my dad always needed soda to go with it. Mika was a no-meat-on-pizza woman, and I couldn’t eat green peppers. Sawyer and Santiago would take anything that had cheese and tomato sauce. So I ordered our two pies, texted Mika to come over, and we all dined on one gluten-free cheese and mushroom pizza and one thin-crust sausage and pepperoni from the great little pizza shop in town. Add in a couple of beers, Sawyer being at his most winsome and silly, and we had a great night, despite the drama of the day.
Sawyer went down without a fuss since he was so tired from all the time with his grandparents, who always gladly helped him climb and jump off anything he desired, and Dad and Lucille went home to relax on their own couch. But Mika and Santiago stayed, and while I cleaned up the kitchen, they found more deadfall from the trees in the yard and built the second bonfire in the firepit in as many nights. It was lovely.
With a beer in hand, I took a seat by the fire and told Mika about the day, careful to only relay my own experience, not anything related to the investigation itself, not that Santiago had said anything today.
“You found her diary?” she asked. “Wow. I can’t imagine what kind of things she wrote in a diary she thought she had to hide in a warehouse.”
I pictured little girl Celeste scribbling away in that dark corner, but then I realized that maybe it wasn’t little girl Celeste that had hidden those things there. Maybe she’d just stored them there when she was older. I knew I probably should wait to ask Santiago that question until later when we were alone, but the words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Was it Celeste as a child that hid the diary? I know that’s what we thought. But maybe she took it there when she was older, like after her parents kicked her out?”
Santiago gave me a sideways smile. “I thought the same thing this afternoon. She was definitely older when she hid them. So you don’t have to worry that a little girl was tucked away up there in the dark.”
I sighed. “How did you know that was what I was thinking?” I asked with a blush.
“You’re a caring person with a big imagination, Paisley,” he said quietly.
Mika giggled. “He does get you, friend.”
My blush made my cheeks flame, so I swung the attention back to Celeste. “How did you know she was an adult?”
“Because she said so. The last entry in the journal says she’s hiding it there for safekeeping so that her parents didn’t destroy it.” He sighed. “She wanted to keep it and the things with it to remind herself of how strong she was, she said.”
Mika sniffled. “Oh man, the more I know about this woman the more I like her,” she said as tears slid down her cheeks. “How could someone do this to her?”
I shook my head, but I had no answer to that really good question.
Santiago said, “I can’t tell you specifics, of course, but if it helps, I think we did get a couple of good leads from Saul’s work this morning.”
“Well, good,” I said. “Saul was at the VFW hall to talk to them about the dances that Celeste attended,” I said to catch Mika up.
“Oh yeah? Cool.” She knew that Santiago couldn’t tell us anything that might compromise the investigation, but I knew that she was as eager as I was to hear anything he could share.
“It seems very likely, given what we learned today, that Celeste had been at a dance that night as we thought she might have been,” Santiago said.
I could see him wrestling with what he felt it was wise to say and what it wasn’t. “Don’t tell us anything you don’t think we should know. Really. We’re big girls and can handle waiting to hear.” I meant what I said, and yet, I still wanted to know more.
“I won’t, Pais,” he said and reached over to take my hand.
I saw Mika smile and nod. “Okay, then tell us what you can,” she said eagerly.
Santiago laughed. “The interesting thing is that the men said they remembered one dance she came to in particular for two reasons: one, it was the last dance she ever attended, and two, some guy was there making a big deal about her.”
“What kind of big deal?” I asked.
“Talking her up to the men, telling them how amazing she was,” Santiago said.
Mika pulled her legs under her. “That’s weird. Sounds like he was trying to get her a date or something.”
I nodded. “That is weird, especially since everyone there probably knew almost everyone else. Octonia isn’t a big place.”
Santiago grinned. “Believe me I know.”
“Could the men describe him?” I asked.
“Yeah, any distinctive tattoos?” Mika said.
I rolled my eyes, and Santiago shook his head. “Nothing particularly notable. A white guy. In his twenties. That’s about it.”
“Well, that doesn’t really narrow it down,” Mika said.
“No, it doesn’t, but it’s a new angle to consider in terms of her death.” Santiago took a sip of his beer and stretched out his legs. I took that as the signal that this was all he felt comfortable sharing.
But that didn’t mean that we couldn’t speculate around him. “I don’t think I’d like it if some guy was talking me up to other guys. It would feel sort of like he was selling me or something?
“Right,” Mika said, drawing out my line of thought. “Like he was pimping her out. Maybe he had something over her? “
We sat in silence for a bit before I said, “Is the coroner going to be able to pinpoint the exact day of death?” I suspected I knew the answer, but I thought I’d ask to be sure.
“No. We’re as close as we’re going to get to that date if we only have her bones to tell us information. But that timeline works out with what the men at the VFW hall told us,” Santiago said.
“But if someone knew she was going to be out at a dance, then it would have been the perfect time to grab her and, well, kill her.” It made me nauseated to even think of that, but it fit.
Mika sighed. “This is so sad.” She looked at Santiago. “How do you do this all the time?”
Santiago sighed. “Fortunately, most of my job involves traffic tickets and people who forget it’s not appropriate to pee in a parking lot. But these cases? They are wearing.”
With that admission, I thought it best, for all of us maybe, if we changed the subject, so I told them about my vegetable garden plans and regaled them with the stories of how Sawyer had thought we would get magical peas four minutes after putting the seeds in the ground.
Mika shared a story of how, at age four, she had eaten all the bean seeds her father had planted and didn’t confess that she had caused the strange bean shortage until two decades later, even though her father brought up the year the bean seeds were terrible every time they put in a garden.
Then, Santiago talked about how his mother had made him stand in the garden every morning to watch for shoots coming through the soil. “It was the greatest thing when I saw one. I always thought it had happened while I was watching.”
I thought about that. “Well, it has to happen sometime, right? Why not while you were watching,” I asked.
“Fair question,” he said. “But one morning, I ran into the house to tell Mama that all the corn had come up while I stood there.” He paused and cleared his throat. “She called me her Magic Mijo from then on. It’s still my family nickname.”
I squeezed his hand and then stood up. “Well, mis amigos, it’s time for me to go to bed.”
Mika hugged me and then headed straight to her car, and I once again thought how lucky I was to have a friend who understood just what I needed and wasn’t offended or hurt when it wasn’t time with her.
I pulled Santiago close. “I’d love to meet your mother someday. She sounds amazing.”
“She is, and you will.” He looked at me. “You and Sawyer, but only when you’re ready, okay?”
“Okay,” I said and kissed him.
* * *
I checked on Sawyer, who was splayed across my bed and snoring, and then made a cup of tea. I was a little too keyed up to sleep just yet, and my cross-stitch was calling my name. I sat down and threaded my needle with an emerald-green thread that was going to be, aptly, a spool of thread in the piece and began to sew.
As I stitched, I realized something was working itself out in the back of my mind. Something about what Santiago said about the garden and watching for the sprouts, that he always thought he caught sight of when one came up.
I put the needle in and pulled the thread up, and then as I plunged it back through the fabric, a question rose up in my mind. What if that’s what happened with Celeste? What if someone had been watching her, saw her at the dance, and realized it was the perfect chance to grab her? Someone might have seen an opportunity and taken it.
The more I sewed and pondered, the more that seemed likely. But that would have meant someone had to be stalking Celeste and waiting, and that felt even more horrible than just someone acting on an opportunity.
Still, I kept coming back to the question of why. A lot of people bore a lot of hate toward trans people, so that was definitely a possibility. But what if it had nothing to do with it? Jealousy? Anger? Desperation?
As I put the final stitches in the spool of thread, I wondered, for the first time, who Celeste had dated and who she had not. A jilted lover or would-be lover might have a lot of reasons to kill a beautiful young woman. And I knew just who to ask.
11
The next morning, Sawyer and I headed down to the historical society. I wanted to give Ms. Nicholas those garden club programs, and I was hoping to catch Trevor on hand. If anyone knew who the guy might have been at the dance or who might have been interested in Celeste, it was him. The best friend always knew all that stuff.
When we arrived, Saw and I settled into the research room with crayons, blank paper, and not a historical document in sight. That boy didn’t honor paper as a prime coloring spot, but I was certain that if I put out a one-of-a-kind letter, he’d want to scribble on it first thing. Ms. Nicholas had welcomed us warmly and was fetching both of us a cup of tea, mine hot and Sawyer’s not. He’d taken to really liking tea, as long as it was room temperature, sweet and milky. I could relate to two of the three.
For my part, I’d brought along one of Lucille’s famous pineapple upside-down cakes on the premise that it was totally fitting for breakfast. I figured a thank you was in order for all Ms. Nicholas had done for me and Santiago, and for hosting Celeste’s memorial. Plus, it gave me an excuse to eat cake for breakfast.
Ms. Nicholas returned with three mugs of mint tea and set one before each of us. I put a small towel out under Sawyer’s and turned on his videos with the hopes that crayons, tea, and Brain Candy would buy me a few minutes.
“Thank you so much for everything you did this weekend,” I said when Ms. Nicholas sat down across from us. “That was a terribly kind gift you gave Celeste.”
Ms. Nicholas nodded. “I was glad to do it, for Trevor mostly. He’s been so distraught since they,” she looked up at me quickly, “since you found her body. It must have been like losing her all over again. He was just so upset.”
“I can’t even imagine. Maybe they can both have peace now.” I sighed and took a sip of my tea before asking my question. “Actually, I was hoping Trevor might be here. I wanted to ask him something about Celeste.”
I knew I was treading a thin line here and that I might just be walking right into actual police investigation work, but I had a sense that Trevor might open up to me more than to Santiago. If that happened, I’d encourage him to tell the police what he knew and I’d tell Santiago myself, too.
“Oh, well, he was due to be here about a half-hour ago.” She looked down at her watch. “Let me give him a call.” She stepped outside the room, and I could hear her leaving what was obviously a message. When she came back in, she looked worried. “It isn’t like Trevor to be late – and he didn’t pick up his phone.”
“Did you try texting him?” I said. “Sometimes people don’t answer a call but will a text.” I knew that was true for me at least.
Ms. Nicholas pursed her lips, but she sent off a quick message. When no reply came immediately, she put her phone down on the table and said, “Maybe he’ll be here soon,” she said half-heartedly.
“Maybe. In the meantime, let’s have some cake.” At the magic word, Sawyer’s head popped up, and I cut him a small slice of sweet gooey goodness before serving Ms. Nicholas and me much more hefty pieces. “I also brought you something.”
I pulled the garden club brochures out of my satchel and slid them across the table. Ms. Nicholas’s face lit up, and she carefully opened and studied each page. “These are gorgeous, and we don’t have anything like them. Can I ask where they came from?”
I told her about the boxes of product in the warehouse and how delighted I was to find these because they were so beautiful and because I knew she’d love them.
“I do love them, but these are over-the-top as advertising material, even for the garden club.” She kept turning the brochure over again and again.
“I thought so, too. Don’t they usually just print a sort of mini-magazine on really thin paper.” I was remembering an incident with last year’s brochure and spilled apple juice.
“Right. They want it to show color, for good reason, but they don’t want all their proceeds to go to printing.” She studied the back of the brochure. “2009. I wonder what changed things that year.”
I picked up the other copy and began reading it. On the third page, I came to a blinding halt. “Oh no,” I said, realizing I should have read the brochure instead of just admiring it.
Ms. Nicholas looked at me. “Are you okay? Whatever is the matter?”
I so wanted to tell her, but this was the kind of thing Santiago needed to hear first-hand. “I’m sorry, Ms. Nicholas. Do you mind if I step out and make a quick phone call? It’s really important.”
She smiled and nodded. “I’ll keep Sawyer busy if he needs me.” She watched me as I left, and I knew I needed to explain, but first, I needed Santiago to hear this.
He answered his cell on the first ring. “Good Morning, Sunshine,” he said. “I would love for this to be a quick perk in my Monday morning, but since you don’t usually opt to use the phone, especially when Little Man is around, I suspect this isn’t just a social call.”
