“I’m sorry,” she said. “I cared for Sister Barbara. We all did. Her fall from grace was tragic.”
I said, “I wasn’t in touch with her while she was in your group, so I never got the whole story of why she left.”
“Sister Barbara is in God’s hands, now,” she said. “I have nothing more to say.”
Her two companions were moments away.
“At least tell me your name,” I said.
Her head-shake was almost imperceptible. Then Lookout Man was at her elbow.
“Sister Rose, we should go.” He gave me a hard stare. I kept my expression mild.
“Yes, yes,” she said, and she walked toward a stall of apples, the two men flanking her like guard dogs.
John D sighed. “My daddy always used to say, ‘Dear Lord, protect us from Your followers.’ I think he got that just about right.”
“She knows something,” I said. “But we may never know what it is.”
“Well, Mr. Detective, what’s our next move?”
“Good question,” I said. “Let’s do some shopping. I’m sure I’ll think of something after that.”
We split up, and I went straight back to the fennel. I had no idea what one did with fennel, but I knew someone who might. I bought a big bulb of it, topped with feathery fringe. I added purple kale, parsnips, shiny flat peppers the color of red lipstick, and a paper bag of chanterelles that resembled pale sea anemones. I pictured the chanterelles sauteing in olive oil.
Why hadn’t Julie called me?
In a blink, self-sufficiency flipped into a sudden desire to hear Julie’s voice. I pulled out my iPhone and called her. I got her message again, and felt the clean cut of disappointment. She was mighty unavailable, for a single gal.
“Hey, Julie, I’m at the Antelope Valley farmer’s market, loading up on produce I have no idea how to cook. Little help, here?”
I was putting my purchases into my trunk when John D wheezed to my side. He dropped his shopping bag next to mine and leaned against the car to steady himself while he caught his breath. I noted the self-satisfied grin.
“What?” I said.
“You prolly think I was just getting supplies, Ten, but turns out I was doing a little detecting, too.”
He rummaged in the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a little scrap of paper.
“Sister Rose slipped this into my hand before she left.”
She’d torn a corner off her shopping list. I read the girlish, looped handwriting: “Meet me on the hill tonight. 8 P.M.”
It looked like I was going to spend more time in scenic Lancaster than I had planned. Fortunately, I had a local with me. My stomach growled; sampling the occasional strawberry and tangerine section had only succeeded in making me ravenous.
“I’m starving,” I told John D.
“I got just the place,” he said. I should have known from the glint in his eye I was in for it.
I parked my Mustang between a pickup and a Prius, outside “Josecita’s Bar and Eats.” Apparently Josecita had something for every pay grade. As I followed John D into the ramshackle eatery, a rooster bumped his way past my legs.
“That’s Henry,” John D said. “Don’t mind him. He’s blind.” My eyes adjusted to the dark, saloonlike atmosphere, and I realized Henry wasn’t the only oddity. A young goat was tethered to the jukebox, a tiny white pig was roaming free, and a couple of mangy dogs lay curled in the corner. I heard a weird chattering above my head. I looked up and blinked.
“John D,” I said. “Is that a-”
“Yes, it is. A South American woolly monkey. He goes by the name of Bonaparte.”
“Hunh.” Monkeys were a dime a dozen in India, but this was my first Southern California sighting.
We found an empty table. I grabbed a seat, and John D crossed to where three coffeepots perched side by side on hot plates, like broody hens. He returned with one and filled our cups with thick sludge only a mother could love.
“House rules. You pour your own,” he said.
“John D!” a thunderous voice bellowed from across the room. An enormous woman, part brawler, part lover, loomed in the kitchen entrance, encased in a psychedelic, multicolored muumuu. “Gimme some sugar!”
Three hundred pounds of quivering love made a beeline for my friend. She wrapped him up like a burrito and squeezed. Then she caught sight of me over John D’s shoulder and spring-loaded him free.
John D recognized the avid look on her face.
“Josecita, I don’t think …”
She darted behind me, and for an instant I was enveloped by two billowing breasts, hanging like warm water balloons on either side of my head. Then Josecita cackled and was gone.
My cheeks burning, I grabbed John D’s arm.
“What the hell was that?”
John D grinned. “She must like you, Ten. She just gave you the famous earmuff treatment.”
Soon she was back with two greasy menus, like nothing had happened. John D waved his away.
“I’ll have the burger, darlin’,” he said.
I opened my menu, but Josecita snatched it back. She bored in on my Asian eyes and almond-toned skin. Read me like a tea leaf.
“You one of them vee-gans?” she asked. I saw John D shake his head at me slightly, warning me.
“Well, not exactly …” I hedged, when she clapped me on the back. It was a little like getting sideswiped by a bus. I braced myself for the mockery that was sure to follow, but her face split wide with a gap-toothed grin.
“Good for you. I love all God’s creatures myself. Listen, honey, I’m no angel, and I do love my burgers, but I ain’t never turned away an animal that didn’t have a home, or a man who was hungry. I’ll fix you up, don’t you worry.”
She disappeared again, and I slumped with relief.
“Welcome to the monkey house,” John D said. He laughed, and his laughter turned into a hacking cough, which went on longer than it should have. He patted his lips with his napkin, and I saw his hand was shaking a little. A shadow swooped my heart like a barn swallow. I put my fingers on John D’s forearm.
“How are you doing?”
“Doing just fine,” he said.
“No. How are you doing, really?”
John D took a moment before answering. “You want to be careful posing that question to a person my age, ’less you’re prepared for a full-on organ recital.”
“Well, I’m asking anyway.”
He met my eyes. “Okay, then. I got a tumor down in my belly growing like weeds in summertime. They wanted to stuff me full of chemo and radiation a few months ago, back when it was about the size of a grapefruit, but I turned ’em down. If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna do it my way, not theirs.” His glare was a challenge.
I let his words settle. Probing what lay beneath, I found only certainty. “Sounds like the right decision to me.”
“You think so? I do, too. The doctors are fighting me every step of the way, though.”
“When it comes to dying, everybody gets to be their own boss.”
“Yep, that’s the way I look at it, but I can see the other side too, I guess. Doctors are trained to never give up. Besides, everyone involved can make a bundle keeping an old guy like me alive, even if it’s only for a few more months.”
“What about your son?”
“What about him? Fighting me on everything is just a habit he can’t break. How I sired such an opinionated, uptight stick-in-the-mud is beyond me. I swear he was born blinkered.”
Another father disappointed in his son. In this case, I was pretty sure I’d side with the father. Still, I noticed John D didn’t exactly answer my question straight on.
“Norman believes I’m too stoned to know my own mind about anything,” John D went on. “Wait until his body starts breaking into pieces of pain-he’ll be begging for the evil weed.”
John D was just full of surprises.
“You smoke pot?”
“Medical marijuana,” he said.
“Really.”
“Perfectly legal,” he added, with noticeable satisfaction.
Josecita slammed a hamburger the size of a dessert plate in front of John D, and a steaming vat of vegetarian chili before me.