Convenient Disposal

Chapter Twenty-five

“I heard the screen door open,” Teresa Reyes said. “You know, I’m not very fast.” She shifted position on her walker and watched Estelle pick up the package that had been slipped between the screen and the solid door. “I could see out the window, though. I saw this old outdoorsman.” She leaned hard on the fourth syllable of the Spanish word, naturalisto, as if it were some sort of disease. She shuffled back and gestured out the front window of the living room.

“He was wearing a checkered shirt?” Estelle asked.

“Maybe that’s what it was,” Teresa said, switching effortlessly to English. “He had on one of those…what do you call it…” She tugged at her own blouse. “A chaleco.”

“A vest,” Estelle offered.

“That’s what it was. One of those quilted ones, like the sheriff wears. When I looked outside, this man who didn’t have an extra minute to wait for an old lady was walking back down the sidewalk to his old truck. Like the one your Uncle Reuben used to drive.”

“An older-model Ford Bronco?” Estelle said.

“I don’t know one from the other. It was old and white. That’s all I know.”

“You didn’t happen to see the license, did you?” Estelle asked more to gently kid her mother than because she needed any further verification that the visitor to her home had been Milton Crowley.

“Ay, como soy menso!” Estelle’s mother sniffed with feigned injury. “Silly me. I should have run right out there. You think I have binoculars built right into these old eyes? You’re the famous detective who’s never home half the time. So who’s this old friend of yours, that leaves you things?”

“His name’s Milton Crowley, Mama. He lives way out, past the end of the mesa.”

“Well, he’s impolite, not to knock on the door and come in with his package.”

“Maybe you don’t want to talk with this one, Mama. He’s a little bit chiflado.”

“So if he’s so crazy, what are you doing with him?”

“I talked with him this morning,” Estelle said, and slipped the end of the plain brown envelope open. A single video cassette lay inside, and she smiled with delight. “I was trying to talk him into letting me borrow this.”

“I won’t ask,” Teresa said, and settled into her rocker. “Your husband took the boys somewhere and left me here.”

“Sorry, Mama. Where did they go?”

“The engineer needed about twenty-five miles of aluminum foil.” She shook her head in despair. “What they do in school nowadays.”

“Different, huh, Mama? ” Teresa had taught in the one-room school in Tres Santos, and Estelle could remember how stern and formidable this tiny woman had seemed to her then. “I hope you’ll go in with us tomorrow night.”

“Of course. I have to see what this one is doing.” She zipped her fingers across her lips. “I know I’m going to have to bite my tongue.”

“You’ll manage.” She slipped the cassette out of the envelope. None of the stick-on labels that came with blank tapes had been affixed, and there was no note in the envelope. “Thank you, Mr. Crowley,” she said.

“Sofia’s coming tomorrow.”

“For sure?”

“Francis said so.”

“Ah, that’s good,” Estelle said, with satisfaction. “You know what we need to do, Mama? ” Her mother lifted her dark eye-brows. “We’re going to buy a piano.” One of the eyebrows settled a little bit. “I talked to hijo’s teacher. You know what he does at lunch? He slips off to the music room and plays the piano. All by himself.”

“When did you find this out?”

“Yesterday. I saw him do it. All by himself. Ms. Delgado says that he’s been doing this for three weeks or more.”

“You’re just now noticing that music is in his heart?” The question came quietly, without the usual good-natured chiding, and it took Estelle by surprise-all the more so when Teresa added nothing to the question, but just let it hang there, waiting to be answered.

“No, I hadn’t noticed,” Estelle replied after a while. She tossed the video on to the end table beside the sofa and settled into the deep cushions.

“You watch his hands, mi corazan. And you watch him read when he thinks he’s alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“You may call me vieja chiflada, too. But I see it. The stories make music in his head when he reads.”

“You mean they remind him of songs?”

Teresa’s wrinkled face wrinkled a bit more. “I don’t know. I can’t see in there.” She tapped her forehead. “All I know is that when he reads, he makes music in his head. He does both-los dos — at the same time.” She shrugged. “What was he playing on that piano at school?”

“I couldn’t tell. I didn’t want to interrupt him.” Estelle leaned her head back and covered her eyes. “I didn’t want him to stop. It sounded like he was trying to work out chords, somehow. He didn’t know I was there.”

“You remember that old piano I had in the school?”

“Yes. Eighty-eight keys, and about forty of them worked.”

“Terrible old thing. No one could play it.” She yawned. “I think a piano is a good thing, hija. Where are you going to put it?” She turned and surveyed the living room of the small house. “In their bedroom?”

“I think right about where your chair is, Mama. If we put it in that corner, it won’t be too close to the fireplace.”

“Which you use so often,” Teresa said dryly. “And then where do I go?”

“Well, we’re going to have to shuffle things around some, I guess.”

“You want some advice?” Teresa mimed pulling on a hat. “I’m putting on my old teacher’s hat now,” she said. “Buy a good one. That’s all I know about it. You remember Pedro Arballo? He was that little fat one who was in love with you all through fourth grade.”

Pedro refused to come to mind, and Estelle shook her head.

“No matter.” Teresa waggled her fingers. “He was a natural guitarrista. I knew it. He had these marvelous, nimble fingers, and when someone would play, you could see the look on his face. Anyway, I told his father, and Luis had this old guitar.” She shook her head in disgust. “It was like having a big chunk of cottonwood with strings nailed on. Imposible. I told Luis he should take this old thing out and burn it, and he told me that I was being ridiculous, that a guitar was a guitar. You know what happened?”

“No.”

“I told Father Tomas about it. I told him what I thought, and about Pedro. The good Father thought about it and then said he’d see what he could do. Before you know it, Pedro had himself a decent guitar. I don’t know where Father got it. But he gave Pedro lessons, and before you know it…” She shrugged elegantly.

“And now he plays concerts all across Europe,” Estelle said soberly, knowing what was coming.

“No, he doesn’t. Luis drank too much one night and drove into the Rio Plegado, which happened to be flooding at the time. He drowned the whole family, including little Pedro with his little guitarist’s fingers.” She pursed her lips as Estelle tried to avoid bursting out laughing, a combination of fatigue and her mother’s version of a moral tale.

“That’s a terrible story, Mama,” she said, groaning.

“It’s true, though. Most of it. The only good thing is that Luis drowned, too. Otherwise I think the whole town would have taken turns shooting him. Yo tambien.”

“I promise, Mama. We won’t buy a cheap piano.”

“Who are you going to find to give lessons?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well, you’re a detective. I’m sure you can find somebody. You know who I think would be good?”

“Who?”

“Isabel Sedillos. If she’ll do it.”

“Gayle Torrez’s grandmother?”

“Yes. If she’ll do it. I don’t know. But she plays every week in church, you know. I see what she does with some of the little ones in the choir. It wouldn’t hurt-” She bit the sentence off when she saw the glacial calm settle over her daughter’s face.

“I’ll talk to Gayle,” Estelle said.

“I think you should. That’s a good idea.” She nodded at the video. “You’re going to watch that now?”

“It’s probably about six hours long, Mama. I’ll wait until everyone’s gone to bed.”

“That’s what you should do, too.”

“In a little bit.”

“Six hours is not a little bit,” Teresa said. “And when are you going to buy this piano?”

“Saturday, I think. I’m going to ask Sofia to go along with us. She plays so beautifully.”

“She doesn’t just play, hija. She is a concert pianist.”

Estelle nodded. “I thought she could help Francisco find the right one. Will you go with us?”

Teresa immediately grimaced and waved a hand. “No, no. I don’t go to that place. I’ll stay home. Are you going to take Carlos?”

“Sure.”

“That’s good.”

“And what do you know about him?” Estelle almost asked, but before she could, her mother took a hold of her walker and pulled herself to her feet.

“And this nasty thing you’re working on,” Teresa said. “What about it?”

“It’s nasty,” Estelle said wearily. “I’m hoping this will help.” She nodded at the tape.

“What makes you think you’ll be able to go off to Las Cruces all day Saturday, then?”

“I’m just going to, that’s all.”

Teresa nodded with satisfaction. “You can do anything you make up your mind to do, hija. This is a good thing you’re doing for Francisco. It’s too easy, you know.”

“What’s too easy?”

“Ojos que no ven, corazon que no siente,” Teresa said, a pontifical forefinger, crooked with arthritis, raised in the air. “You put them out of sight long enough, pretty soon they’re out of your heart, too.”

“Mama, they’re in my heart and mind all the time. That’s why I do what I do. I think about you, about Francis, about the boys all the time.”

“Well, that’s good,” Teresa said. “But you just remember that being safe and well fed isn’t enough.” For a moment, it looked as if Teresa wanted to say something else, but she didn’t. She began her slow shuffle across the living room, heading toward her room in the back of the house. “I’m going to start on a nap while there’s some peace and quiet.”

“Close your door so they don’t wake you when they come home.”

Teresa shook her head. “No. That’s the best sound to hear, you know.” She blew a kiss toward her daughter. Estelle sat quietly for a few minutes, gazing at the blank spine of the videotape.