Less Than Frank Part 4

"So could you trace it? Were there prints on it?"

Fernandez shook his head. "I don't know why you ask these kinds of questions, Ms. Harris, when you know I can't tell you the answers."

"If you're going to continue looking at my son as a suspect, I feel we have a right to know things like this." It might not have been the most solid argument, but it was the only one I had.

Fernandez took a drink of his coffee. "I can see your point, but it doesn't mean I'll be sharing much information with you. I do appreciate the fact that you and Ben have been honest with me so far."

My temper flared and I felt like asking him what he meant by "so far" but I kept that thought to myself. There was no need to upset a man who could arrest my son. "I am almost always honest with everyone, Detective Fernandez."

"And like I said, I appreciate that. I intend to be honest with you as far as I can be without jeopardizing an ongoing investigation." He took a drink of his coffee and let the silence spin on for a while. "The most I can tell you right now is that we found the gun, and it appears to be one that Mr. Collins owned."

"That's a good deal of information," Buck broke in. "And knowing my wife's cousin, I'd say Frank didn't own that gun legally. Or at least he kept it someplace where he shouldn't have." The gate on the run clanged shut behind him as he stepped out, emphasizing his words.

"Legal or not, I can't comment on the brilliance of keeping a loaded gun in the cab of a pickup truck," Fernandez said. "But plain stupidity or even the other kinds of behavior Frank Collins exhibited have never been grounds for murder."

"If they were, there'd be far more homicides," Buck said firmly. It was the kind of statement even Fernandez didn't argue with.

Chapter Seven.

Fernandez finished up with Buck, said his goodbyes quickly and started to open his car to leave. He stopped midway through the action and then came back to where Buck was coiling hose and I was scooping out dry dog food into large food bowls as the last part of the morning routine.

"I meant to tell you one more thing," he said, directing his statement to Buck. "Your wife will probably want to know that we're releasing Mr. Collins's body to a mortuary today. I imagine the family is planning services soon."

"Thank you, Detective Fernandez. I'll pa.s.s on the word," Buck said.

I wondered whether the detective would be upset with me if I went to pay my respects. He'd probably see it as horning in on the investigation, but at the same time I wanted to meet Frank's family. The hardest part would be finding somewhat pleasant, neutral things to say about him. I was still pondering that when Fernandez left and I went to go have breakfast after all the dog run ch.o.r.es.

Later in the day Dot and I met at the mailboxes at the same time and I shared my reservations about going to the visitation with her. "I think you should go," she said. "You would learn a lot from being there that might help Ben, and besides, I want company. I don't know if I'll be able to get Buck to go with me on this one. He hates funeral homes and he wasn't that fond of Frank, so it's going to be a hard sell."

I couldn't help but smile. "If it will be doing you a favor, I'll plan to go. Let me know when it is and I'll try to work my schedule so that I'm off to go with you."

It wouldn't be that hard to get Maria to let me off during an evening to do something. She didn't usually schedule me past seven or eight anyway, giving the later night hours to kids who lived on campus. She was a good manager with lots of "people skills." I felt very fortunate to have this job. At some point I'd need full-time work, but I was hoping to eke out what I could until I finished my degree in counseling at Pacific Oaks and could get a job there or one of the community colleges in the area in advising or counseling.

In the midst of all this I was struck by an odd thought. What did Californians wear to a funeral? The only two I'd been to had been my husband's, where I was in no condition to pay any attention to what anybody else wore, and my mother-in-law's, where I was tempted to forgo the black or navy I normally wore to such events in favor of her favorite pale aqua. In both cases I was so wrapped up in grieving and the services at hand I hadn't paid any attention to the local traditions on such things.

Given that folks in Southern California tended to show up for church in anything under the sun, I had to suspect their funeral behavior wouldn't be much different. There might not be many Hawaiian s.h.i.+rts present, but I'd imagine that there still would be some T-s.h.i.+rts, shorts and flip-flop sandals. Some people might be more casual than usual since Frank worked in construction and many of the apprentices and helpers would be involved. It was hard to picture Darnell, for example, owning anything fancier than jeans and T-s.h.i.+rts. His most expensive item of clothing was probably a wetsuit.

There were even plenty of people who went to church at Conejo Community Chapel who were comfortable showing up every Sunday in jeans no matter what they wore during the week. This wouldn't be the typical Midwestern crowd I was used to seeing at a visitation, or what we'd call there a "wake." Hopefully those in attendance would all turn their cell phones off, but I wasn't going to count on that.

Sunday at church Pastor George announced that there would be a funeral service for Frank Collins on Wednesday at the church, adding that he was the nephew of Dorothy Morgan-which was the first time I'd ever heard her full name used-and noted the funeral home where visitation would be held Tuesday night. It was a branch of Dodd and Sons, who had handled the arrangements for Dennis and his mother. Fortunately they had several different locations in the Conejo Valley, and the one Frank would be at was in Simi Valley, not in Rancho Conejo. It would give me a lot fewer bad memories to recall this way, and I was thankful.

I'd gone to an early service, which meant I had no expectations of Ben joining me at church. When he came it was definitely later on Sunday morning or at their most contemporary service on Sat.u.r.day night. There was a chapel on campus at Pacific Oaks, and he often wors.h.i.+pped there instead. I was just happy he was keeping a faith life. So many college kids, even in small colleges like his, use that break from home to also break with church and faith. I often wondered if I would have married Hal as young as I had if part of my rebellion in college hadn't been to reject anything and everything organized religion had to offer for a while. If I hadn't been rejecting the church just then, would it have been as "cool" to be married at nineteen and somebody's mom shortly after my twentieth birthday? It was a question I couldn't answer, but one I still pondered every so often.

Definitely it wasn't a path I'd recommend Ben followed, especially since he was at Pacific Oaks on nearly a full scholars.h.i.+p. I didn't think the financial-aid folks would look too kindly on somebody who decided he had enough funds to support a wife on their nickel.

I knew that for his father and me, like many others, getting married that young meant one of us dropping out of school. It certainly wasn't Hal. His wealthy family had helped out some with money, but primarily for things that only benefited him, like his tuition. They'd made it perfectly clear that in their eyes I was a gold digger who'd spirited away their precious son. It hadn't been the case, but I'd never been able to convince the Harris family of that.

Leaving the service and going to the coffee time afterward, I wondered what Frank's family situation had been. Not a real friendly one, according to what Dot had told me already. I brought it up with her again when I saw her sitting at a table in the fellows.h.i.+p hall with her coffee and a couple of donut holes.

"It wasn't exactly the Hatfields and McCoys, but there was no love lost between Frank and a couple of Tracy's brothers," she said, wiping at spots of powdered sugar on the table. "The two older ones had never been happy with him for a minute. They felt he'd treated their sister badly and there were always rumors floating around that he hadn't been faithful to her."

"Ouch. But brothers can certainly be protective. I know if I had an older brother looking out for me I probably would never have married Dennis."

"And that would be our loss, Gracie Lee, but probably your gain." Dot patted my hand.

"Probably Heather's gain as well, although you never can tell," I said. "If I hadn't married Dennis, he might have gone back to California even sooner. All that is just speculation, though."

Dot nodded. "For reasons we don't really understand, the way things all happened was a part of G.o.d's plan for you. Sometimes I ask Him what my particular plan is all about, because it sure is hard to figure out."

She had a wry smile, and I could only imagine how many challenges she had already faced in life that didn't have a clear explanation for anybody. They certainly wouldn't have made sense in the way the world looked at things.

As if she read my mind Dot continued on. "Buck and I married fairly late in life, and we waited a while for Candace. Then when she was born the doctors told us about her problems, and said she might never talk, or do most things on her own. They were wrong, though. Candace not only talks, but she reads, and in the group home situation she's in she is as independent as she can be."

"Still, I bet you wondered some about why everything happened the way it did."

Dot shrugged. "I still wonder once in a while, but Candace is so special that I wouldn't trade her in for a supposedly normal young woman even if I had a chance. She's content with her life and she loves the Lord and almost never causes us worry or trouble. How many other mothers of women in their thirties can say that?"

"Not all of them, for sure." I thought about Sandy and what she'd say about all the "trouble" Heather had caused her. At least that was the way Sandy saw it. I don't think she'd ever considered the amount of heartache Heather brought on herself.

"I can think of several who wouldn't say that. Tracy Collins's mother especially comes to mind. She's not much over thirty, and look at everything that has happened in her young life," Dot said. "She has three small children and now she's a widow and her husband's business probably won't support her at all. I know she doesn't have more than a high school diploma to try and build a new life with, either."

"Maybe she needs Christian Friends." I didn't think Tracy Collins would be comfortable in our group, but there was probably one someplace that could help her a great deal.

"I'll talk to Linnette about it." Dot started to get up from her place at the table. "But not right now, because I need to go to Bible cla.s.s before I'm late."

I looked at my watch. "Yikes. Save me a seat." As usual these days, I was running late again.

In the end I didn't call Fernandez about going to the visitation or the funeral. I figured that he'd just blow a gasket if I did. Dot also asked me to go with her for moral support, because as predicted Buck didn't want to be anywhere near the place. So I found myself on Tuesday night dressed in my nicest navy slacks and a sweater, driving Dot to the visitation. This particular branch of Dodd and Sons looked more like a scaled-down Spanish mission than a chapel, and there were a few cars and even more pickup trucks parked in the lot outside when we pulled up.

Inside the large room that held the closed casket there were a lot of guys standing around looking uncomfortable. I recognized several of them as being subcontractors who'd worked on the apartment, including Ed Leopold, who did the plumbing. Most of the men wore a s.h.i.+rt and tie or even a sport coat with clean pants, usually khakis. Almost every outfit seemed to be one that n.o.body took out of the closet very often.

Darnell was near the front of the room, talking to a pale, tired-looking woman with blond hair who sat in a chair near the earthly remains of Frank Collins. That had to be Tracy. Near her and the casket there were several large pictures of Frank, with two floral arrangements sitting on stands. One of the pictures showed a much younger Frank and Tracy in wedding attire. Frank had a forced smile on his face, while Tracy's was a little bit more natural. I noticed that her wedding dress wasn't fitted at the waist.

The other two pictures were one of Frank alone, probably used for some kind of business ad originally, and one that was probably a shot taken for the holidays, maybe even to tuck into Christmas cards. Tracy looked about as pale and washed-out as she did sitting in the front of the room, and there were three stair-stepped kids in front of her and her husband. The oldest, a boy, seemed to favor Frank, while the two smaller little girls resembled healthy-looking versions of their mother. All three seemed to have more energy than she could possibly deal with.

Darnell had surprised me by putting on khakis and a sweater. I guess even surfers had to have at least one decent set of clothes. He was still talking to Tracy when we walked up near them. Dot and I stood at a respectful distance in case they were discussing something private.

It was a few minutes before Tracy looked up and scanned the room. When she saw Dot standing there, she tilted her head like she was thinking and then motioned her over. "I know I should recognize you from somewhere. Thank you for coming tonight." Her voice sounded hollow. I wondered if a doctor had given her something to "calm her down" through what had to be a horrendous period. Probably not, since she had three children at home to take care of, unless some of her family was helping out in that regard.

Dot grasped Tracy's hand in both of hers. "I'm Dot Morgan. Frank and Darnell were working on the apartment in back of our house when he had his...accident."

Tracy gave a small, choked laugh. "Some accident. I expect somebody did that on purpose."

Dot seemed taken aback by her candor. "Yes, well, you're probably right. I didn't want to say that, though. Frank may have had his troubles, but he seemed to have come a long way from when I'd known him as a younger man."

Tracy looked skeptical. "Really? How long have you known him?"

"Quite a while. His mother and aunts are my cousins."

Tracy slipped her hand out from Dot's, not in an unfriendly way, but more as if she just lacked the energy to hang on anymore. "I guess he'd grown up some. With Frank it was hard to tell. He was still pulling versions of the same stupid stuff he was trying when we got married, and it still worked just as poorly."

There was silence between the four of us for a little while, as Dot gathered her thoughts. I decided to take her off the hook for the time being. "I'm Gracie Lee Harris, the tenant of Dot's apartment."

Tracy's eyes clouded. "I guess you must be the one who found him, from what the police said. I bet that was awful."

"It was a shock," I admitted. Tracy looked like somebody who didn't need any more lies or half truths in her life right now.

"It should have been me," Darnell blurted out, causing all of us to look at him.

"You mean instead of Frank?" I asked, thinking that this would put a whole different spin on things for Fernandez.

Darnell shook his head. "No, I should have been the one to find him. If I hadn't taken the day to go to Point Dume, maybe he wouldn't even have died. Maybe whoever shot him wouldn't have had the chance." He looked pained, as if he'd been thinking about this for a week. I felt sorry for him even though I usually considered him to be unreliable. Obviously he regretted what he'd done at least this one time. I wondered if it meant he'd actually change his ways once he was working for someone else.

"Well, it's too late to think about that now," Tracy said. "Besides, this happened early in the morning before you usually get to a job site anyway. You're not exactly an early riser unless you're catching a wave, Darnell."

He looked down at the floor. "That's pretty true. Maybe I couldn't have done much anyway." He looked around, scanning the room with an uncomfortable expression. Then he saw something and his face brightened. "Hey, there's Bobby Leopold. I need to talk to him about something." In short order he was gone, leaving Dot and me standing near Tracy.

"Are you going to be all right?" Dot asked with her characteristic way of getting to the point. "Did Frank leave you something to live on?"

Tracy sighed. "Not much. He didn't have any life insurance except the policy the bank made him take out the last time we remortgaged the house. That means the mortgage gets paid off and I can live in the house for a while until I have to sell it because there's nothing else coming in. People are coming out of the woodwork claiming Frank owed them money, too. I'm beginning to think he never paid any bill he could put off."

Dot gave me a quick look that said See? I told you so, and went back to talking to Tracy. "Did he keep his own books for the business, or did you help out with that?"

"He wouldn't let me touch any of his business stuff. Said he was handling all of it just fine. Maybe he was, but it looks more like he just didn't want me to see what he was up to." Tracy looked like she was ready to burst into tears.

"How about your family or his? Is anyone helping you out?" Dot just kept on with the questions, as gently as possible but persistent.

"Not with money. But my brother Mike and his wife are watching the kids for me tonight. Mike's going to bring Frankie up here in a while, but we all decided that the girls are too young."

She looked so overwhelmed that I felt like hugging her and telling her it would all be okay, but that wasn't exactly the truth. I had no idea whether or not Tracy Collins would be okay any time soon. If she was, it would definitely be by the grace of G.o.d, because Frank certainly didn't leave her anything to count on.

"You're right. We have to tell her about Christian Friends," I told Dot after we'd moved away from the front of the room so that others could talk to the young widow.

"I will, just not tonight," Dot said. "I don't think she's in any condition to hear and take in what I have to say. She and Frank have never been regular churchgoers anywhere, and the idea of praying for people, or having them pray for you, would be a different one for Tracy. I don't know anybody who would benefit more from joining a Christian Friends group, but I suspect Tracy will be a hard sell."

"That's probably true," I told her. Then I started looking around the room for some of the other people I wanted to talk to. Darnell was still in conversation with a young man who looked so much like Ed Leopold that he had to be his son. Near the front of the room in a cl.u.s.ter sat several older women, of an age to be Frank's mother and aunts. Looking at them I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and b.u.mped into a very solid male shoulder.

I started to apologize and the words died in my throat. "Well, well, Gracie Lee," Fernandez said. "Why am I not surprised that you're literally the first person I b.u.mped into here?"

Chapter Eight.

"Dot asked me to come with her," I told Fernandez, already feeling on the defensive. He seemed to do that to me. No matter what the situation, when I stood facing Ray Fernandez I felt like a teenager caught skipping study hall. He was dressed sharply as usual in dark pants and a black-and-gray herringbone jacket. Tonight he wore a tie to complement his crisp white s.h.i.+rt.

Clearly he'd gone home and changed between work and the funeral home, because this outfit hadn't seen a full day's wear. Not even Fernandez could look this fresh after a day's work.

"You'll notice I didn't bother to ask what you were doing here, Gracie Lee," he said, with much less scowl than I'd expected. "After all, Mr. Collins was working on your apartment when he died, and you found the body. I expected this."

I opened my mouth to thank him, but before I could get any words out, he continued. "What I don't expect is for you to insert yourself into my investigation by asking a lot of questions and giving me your opinions."

Okay, that made me a little huffy but I tried to ignore it. "Any questions I've asked so far have been totally appropriate. And right now I have only one opinion I'd share with anybody. I think Tracy Collins could definitely use a Christian Friends group like Dot and I go to. She's young, widowed and has three kids to support and precious little to do it with." I teared up a little just thinking about it.

"Okay, I can appreciate that. But maybe it ought to wait until she gets through the next few days." He looked down at me and his meaning was perfectly clear even though he hadn't said anything threatening. If he saw me talking to Tracy again, there would be trouble.

Dot would have to talk to her cousins-Frank's mother and aunts-alone. That wasn't the way I'd planned things, but it was the way they were going to be tonight. "Is there anyone here that it would be all right for me to talk to?"

I really wanted to talk to the Leopolds, and I got a flash of inspiration on how I could do that without making Fernandez aggravated. "I hope I can talk to the plumbing contractor or his son without upsetting you. We really need to have somebody finish up the bathroom in the apartment and he'd be the most likely candidate since he was Frank's subcontractor on the job."

The furrow in Fernandez's brow cut a little deeper, and then his face cleared. "I expect that would be all right. But please, stick to the subject of plumbing, will you?"

"I'll try my best. If Mr. Leopold brings up any other issues, I'll stay away from them as best I can without being rude."

"That's all I can ask," he said, the hint of a smile playing around his handsome face. He really was a good-looking man when he smiled. Too bad I rarely saw him doing that. We really seemed to bring out the worst in each other.

"Have a nice evening, Gracie Lee. Stay out of trouble." With that suggestion, or order, or whatever it was, he turned and went up to the front of the room to talk to Tracy. I wondered why he hadn't just parked himself in the back of the room somewhere to see who was here tonight. I was beginning to think that all the television cop shows I'd watched must have gotten it all wrong. Fernandez didn't behave like the TV cops at all.

I scanned the room for Ed Leopold or his son. I didn't see the father, but the young man Darnell had said was Bobby still stood near the back, hands in his pockets, looking uncomfortable. He looked like he needed someone to talk to. Maybe I was just the person. I walked over to where he was standing.

"Hi. Are you Bob Leopold?" Might as well take the direct approach.

The young man looked puzzled. "Yeah, I am. How did you know that?"

"You look a lot like your dad, and when I was talking to Darnell earlier, he mentioned your name. I'm Gracie Lee Harris, Dot Morgan's tenant. Has she talked to you or your dad yet about possibly finis.h.i.+ng up the job Mr. Collins left?"

"Not yet, but I know what my dad will say. He'd probably be happy to do it, as long as somebody pays him for what Frank already owed him for labor and supplies."

"Goodness. Hasn't that already been done?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Frank always tries...uh, I guess that should be tried...to weasel out of paying until the last possible minute. Dad swore last year he was never going to work with him again, but I think Mrs. Morgan talked him into it this time."

"Ah." It was just what Dot said before. "So how much did Frank owe you?"

"At least a couple grand. It would be more, but Dad wouldn't pick up any of the fixtures until he was sure Frank had already paid for them. The plumbing supply place could have gotten a rubber check for all I know, but at least it wasn't us getting stiffed for a change." Bob Leopold looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth.