Megan
As we’d driven back to the station, I’d asked Detective Jackson why she’d chosen not to confront Father Emmanuel about the girl in the blue hat and the guy with the black eye.
“Because my gut told me not to,” she said. “Given that they weren’t in the compound, he’s got them hidden somewhere we might never find them. Confronting him could be worse for them than if we wait it out, lie low, and do some clandestine surveillance, follow their vehicles.”
I knew Detective Jackson had years more experience than me and a better-honed gut, but my gut told me to keep trying. The only problem was, there seemed to be nothing left to do other than what Jackson had suggested. Lie low. Watch from afar. Follow their cars and see where they go. Ugh. Detective work certainly wasn’t for the impatient.
* * *
That evening, I swung by my parents’ place to pick up my mother and take her out for ice cream as promised. While she indulged in a huge scoop of mocha almond fudge, I opted for a fruity raspberry sorbet.
As we sat in the booth, enjoying our treats, she asked me how work was going.
I glanced around to make sure we couldn’t be overheard before filling her in on some of the more recent details of the cult case. “I’m so frustrated,” I told her, “but I can’t figure out what else to do.”
“I have faith in you,” my mother said. “You’ll figure something out.”
She might believe in me, but I didn’t believe in myself at the moment. Still, there was so much at stake that I couldn’t give up. I supposed I could only hope that God might give me an answer.
When I dropped my mother back at the house, she gave me a tight hug through the car window. “I’m not sure I say it enough, but I’m really proud of you, Megan. You’ve turned out to be a smart, determined, and caring woman. I’d like to take credit for all of that, but I was so busy with your brothers and sister that you basically raised yourself.”
What she said was true. Even so, she’d set a good example for me. Not with her cooking or organizational skills, but she’d always been compassionate and hard-working, if a little scatterbrained.
“You were a good mom,” I told her. “Still are.”
She gave me a soft smile and patted my arm before standing. “Keep the faith, Megan.”
I fought a sigh. “I’ll do my best.”
* * *
Saturday afternoon, Seth and I planned to go to a classic car show at Texas Motor Speedway, which sat a few miles north of Fort Worth. He knocked on the door at a few minutes before one, his arrival foretold by Brigit via a series of happy barks. I grabbed my purse, gave Brigit a kiss on the snout, and told her to “Be a good girl while I’m gone. Okay?”
I opened the door to find Seth standing on the porch. His Nova sat at the curb. In the front passenger seat sat Ollie. Looked like he’d decided to come with us.
We walked out to the car and Seth opened the door for me. I squeezed into the backseat and greeted his grandfather with a squeeze on the shoulder. “Nice to see you again, Ollie.”
He replied with a grunt, but it sounded like a relatively happy grunt, if there was such a thing.
We headed up Interstate 35 until we reached the speedway. The event was popular, and the parking lot was packed. I feared that Ollie might have a hard time pulling his oxygen tank along behind him, but we walked slow and he seemed to manage fine.
After buying tickets at the counter, we went inside. Parked all along the racetrack were vintage cars arranged by the year of production. At the beginning was a 1908 Model T. It had none of today’s safety features. No airbags. No seat belts. No warning lights on the dashboard. Amazing how far things had come in a hundred and ten years.
Ollie leaned in to take a look at the motor. “Would you look at that?” he said to Seth. “That’s about as simple as an engine can get.”
We moved on, eventually making our way to models released in the 1940s and 1950s. Ollie quickened his pace when he spotted a turquoise and white 1956 Bel Air, moving so fast he nearly ran over a man’s foot with his oxygen tank.
Seth and I followed him. He stared at the car, dazed, as if seeing something none of the rest of us could see. “My father had a car just like this,” he said softly. “I took Ruthie out in it on our first date.”
I stepped up beside him. “Where’d you take her?”
“Drive-in movies. I wanted to see Thunderball, but she wanted to see Doctor Zhivago. I told her I’d flip a coin to decide. We went to Doctor Zhivago.”
“So she won the coin toss,” I said.
“Nope,” he replied. “It came up heads. I flipped it five more times. Got heads every time. I finally told her we could go see her movie if she promised to kiss me good night. Best kiss I ever got.”
My “aww” was nearly drowned out by Seth’s “eww.” I guess nobody likes to think of their grandparents feeling romantic.
After marveling at the early automobiles and buying soft pretzels and drinks, we moved on to Seth’s favorites, the muscle cars of the 1960s and 1970s. We passed a pristine blue Shelby Mustang. A Dodge Daytona in bright red. A gold Pontiac GTO. The image spread across the hood of a black 1978 Firebird reminded me of the army-eagle tattoo spread across Seth’s back. It had been a while since I’d seen it. With the unofficial overtime I’d been putting it, I hadn’t had a lot of free time lately. Our irregular work schedules also didn’t help matters much. Of course I knew I wouldn’t be working nine to five once I made detective, either. But one thing to be said for our situation was that we didn’t get sick of each other. I supposed that was a plus.
We eased on to a 1978 AMC Pacer.
“I remember when these first came out.” Ollie leaned in to peek inside. “I thought they looked like a fishbowl on wheels. Ugliest car ever made.”
“Worse than the Gremlin or Yugo?” Seth asked.
“Hands down.”
We moved on to a shiny, burgundy-on-ice Cadillac Coupe DeVille.
“Wow,” I said. “This car’s nearly as long as a bus.”
Eventually we wound our way around to the spec cars of the future, which included a solar-powered model.
“Wonder how long until we’ll be driving that,” I said. “Sure would be nice n-not to have to stop for gas all the time.”
After the car show, we stopped for Mexican food at Joe T. Garcia’s in the northside neighborhood. Like many of the cars we’d seen earlier, the restaurant had been around a long time, over eighty years. That’s a whole lotta enchiladas.
It was reasonably early, and we were lucky enough to get a table on the extensive patio.
Over margaritas, I asked Seth if he remembered the first time we’d come to the restaurant together.
“Yep,” he said. “It was right after that bomb exploded in the mall.”
It had been a harrowing experience and left me shaken, but had it not happened I wouldn’t have met Seth. Funny how things turn out, isn’t it? “I definitely needed a margarita then.” Heck, I’d needed a dozen.
We continued to chat throughout the meal. Occasionally Ollie slipped back into grump mode, but for the most part he was content and tolerable. I only hoped this new, happier him wasn’t just a phase. It sure would be nice if Seth’s family could start putting their dysfunction behind them.
When they drove me home, Ollie waited in the car while Seth walked me to the door and gave me a good-night kiss.
“Eww!” Ollie hollered through the open window of the car. When we turned his way, he called, “Two can play that game, Seth.”
“That’s fair,” Seth called back before giving me another kiss. He put his forehead to mine. “See you later. And stop worrying about the baby’s mother. You’ll find her.”
He’d read my subtle signals. Though I’d tried to be as attentive as possible at the car show, my mind kept going back to the young woman in the blue hat and the young man who’d tried to reach her. Where were they? Were they okay? Were they even still alive?
* * *
Sunday morning found me online, once again searching eBay and other online sites to see if Felicia Bloomquist’s inventory showed up for sale from a seller in north Texas. Though I found several people selling Nouveau Toi, Manhattan Metals, Baubles, Vestments, and Eleanor Neely products, I found no single seller offering products from more than one of the lines.
Given that I was already up, I decided to meet up with my family and attend mass. It had been a while.
As I sat in the pew between my sister Gabby and my brother Joey, I contemplated the predicament. I needed to get to the young man and woman, but how? If only we could communicate, they could tell me what to do, how I could help. But short of smoke signals, skywriting, carrier pigeon, or drone, I had no way of getting a message into the compound—assuming they even were in the compound. I closed my eyes and silently prayed for God’s guidance in helping the baby’s mother and the young man.
Unfortunately, no booming voice came from the heavens, telling me what to do. Darn. I opened my eyes, finding them aimed at the Bible in the rack in front of me. Hmm.
My mind went back to the draft of the sermon I’d seen on Father Emmanuel’s desk in the church office at the People of Peace compound. Where did that quote about a time for everything come from again? Ecclesiastes?
I reached out and snagged the Bible, laying it on my lap. I scanned until I found the verses I’d been searching for at the beginning of chapter three. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Basically, the rest of the verse dealt in opposites. Birth and death. Planting and reaping. Killing and healing. Breaking down and building up. Weeping and laughing. Mourning and dancing. Rending and sewing. Staying silent and speaking. Love and hate. War and peace.
Wait. A time to rend, and a time to sew.
And then it hit me, as certainly as God’s voice from above.
The baby’s mother had sewn her message into the bluebonnet quilt, and the message had reached me. If I wanted to reach her, maybe all I had to do was the same—sew a message in the trim of one of her quilts. I could buy one at the store in Benbrook, rend it, sew a message into it, and return the blanket to the store with a request that it be repaired. The blanket would be taken back to the baby’s mother and, with any luck, she’d discover my message and respond, telling me where she was.
The idea was a smart one, and must have come from divine inspiration. I raised my head, looked up at Jesus on the cross, and gave Him a discreet thumbs-up. Was it just my imagination, or had He winked at me?
Gabby glanced my way, a confused look on her face. I pretended to be scratching my belly with my thumb. No sense telling her God had just spoken to me directly through His book. She might think I’d gone crazy. Heck, maybe I had.
As soon as mass concluded, I bade a quick good-bye to my family. I was eager to get out to the store, to buy a bluebonnet blanket so that I could get it back before the man from the People of Peace came by in the morning to collect their earnings and drop off new inventory. Otherwise, I’d have to wait another week. I wasn’t sure the young woman—or I—could wait that long.
My mother frowned. “You’re not coming home for lunch?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t. I’ve got a work emergency.”
As I scurried off, I heard her ask my father, “Work emergency? Did she get a phone call or something?”
I was out of earshot before he could respond, already dialing Detective Jackson to share my idea with her. I was only a beat cop, not a detective. My plan could only proceed with her go-ahead.
“I have an idea,” I said when she answered. “A way we can get a message to the baby’s mom, figure out where she is.”
“How in the world would we do that?”
I told her my idea. “She sent a message by stitching it on the blanket, and it went unnoticed.” By everyone but me, at least. “If I use the same color thread as the trim, I think I can send her a secret message, too.”
“It’s worth a shot,” Jackson said. “It’s also very clever. Good job, Megan.”
If I’d been a K-9, my plan would’ve earned me a liver treat.
Minutes later, I was speeding down the road in my little Smart Car. I whipped into the bank and zipped into the drive-up ATM, withdrawing three hundred dollars and shoving them into my purse before taking off again. Not long thereafter, I turned into the parking lot of the Benbrook Burgers, Beer, and Bait shop.
I hurried inside, rushed past the day’s cashier, and aimed straight for the quilts. I dug through the stack, which was much smaller than it had been earlier in the week. The one with the Texas flags had sold. The one with the moon and stars was still here. There was a cactus-themed one I hadn’t seen before. But not a single quilt with bluebonnets. Darn it!
The clerk, a platinum blonde in her thirties, came over. “Can I help you with something?”
“I saw a quilt here earlier in the week,” I said. “A real pretty one with bluebonnets on it.”
“The bluebonnet quilt is our best seller,” she said, echoing what the other saleslady had told me. “We don’t have one in stock right now, but we get shipments on Monday mornings. I’m expecting another one tomorrow.”
Ugh! I was already frustrated, and now there would be a chance someone could get to it before me.
“Can you set it aside for me?” I asked. “I really, really want one. Bad.”
“It’s normally first come, first served,” she said.
“What if I pay you for it now?” I pleaded.
She raised a shoulder. “If you’re willing to pay in advance, I don’t see why we can’t hold it for you.”
“Fantastic!” I took her by the shoulders. “Thank you so much!”
She smiled and gave me an odd look, probably wondering why a blanket would mean so much to anyone.
I followed her to the cash register, where I paid her in cash. She wrote “Prepayment for bluebonnet quilt” on the receipt and handed it to me.
“What’s your name? I’ll need to leave a note for the woman who works during the week.”
I gave her a combination of my sister’s and my roommate’s. “Gabby Kerrigan.” No sense using my real name. Everyone from the People of Peace had had a chance to read my name tag when we spoke with them last Thursday. If they happened to hear the name Luz, or see it written down somewhere, they might get suspicious and blow my plan.
She jotted the fictitious name down before looking back up at me. “The quilts are usually here by ten at the latest.”
“Great,” I said. “I’ll come by then.”