Death and the Girl Next Door

The mental image of the scene played over and over in my mind as we walked home, wondering how Jared fit into the picture. It made no sense. Elliot Davis died of an aneurysm. What did that have to do with anything?

Brooke and I decided to do a little more investigating by way of my grandparents until Glitch got out of football practice. I couldn’t imagine what a team manager did, but the guy rarely missed a practice and never missed a game. His job must have been really important, whatever it entailed.

“Hey, Gram,” I said, strolling into the kitchen with Brooke in tow. Grandma was a couple inches taller than either of us, but that wasn’t saying much. She was thin with light gray hair and soft baby blues that Grandpa said made all the boys’ hearts go pitter-pat. He would wriggle his brows and assure me she’d been the prime catch of the season. It cracked me up.

“Hey, kids. I’m trying a new recipe for the gang.”

The gang she referred to was her bingo group. She and Grandpa played bingo at least once a week at the church Grandpa pastored, so that made it almost a religious experience in their eyes.

“It smells wonderful,” I said, plopping my books onto the kitchen table. The store and our kitchen were separated by a pocket door, so Grandma could work in the house when we didn’t have customers. I often did the same on my shifts, concocting all manner of salsas in the kitchen until the bell rang, announcing a potential sale. My peppered red chile was the best.

Brooklyn tiptoed to look into the pot. “You need any taste-testers? We’re available all afternoon and have excellent taste buds.”

Grandma chuckled and handed us a bowl of chips as she stirred. We dipped freely of the chile con queso and sank our teeth into a spicy, crunchy kind of heaven.

“Oh, my gosh,” Brooke said, her mouth half full. “This is incredible.”

“Mm-hmm,” I agreed, going in for another test.

“I made plenty, so I’ll leave you a bowl.”

“Thanks, Grandma,” I said.

“You girls aren’t double-dipping, are you?”

I turned as Grandpa walked in through the back.

“Hey, Pastor,” Brooke said, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Hey, Grandpa.”

He placed his cap on its usual hook and walked over for a hug, squeezing both of us at the same time. “Well, now that you two have tested the fare, I guess I can have a go without the threat of imminent death hanging over my head.” When Brooklyn looked up at him in surprise, he said, “Oh, yeah, this woman has been trying to kill me for years.” He shook an accusing chip at Grandma. “Didn’t pix tell you?”

She turned toward me, her brows raised in question.

“He’s right,” I said between bites. “She tried liquid Drano once, but he could taste it in the food, so she had to get more creative.”

“Now, now,” Grandma said. “That Drano thing was just a big misunderstanding.” She winked at Brooklyn, and we both laughed at my grandparents’ teasing. They were so fun.

While Grandpa was a pastor, he made preaching look more like stand-up comedy than a lesson on the teachings of the Bible, so we had a pretty big congregation. He had a thick head of white hair, soft gray eyes, and a wide, solid frame. He wasn’t particularly tall either, but at least my grandparents could see over the seats in the movie theater. They were my mom’s parents. I’d never met my other set of grandparents. They died before I was born. But I had this set, and I was perfectly happy with them. When they weren’t lecturing me.

“Can I ask you guys a question?”

Grandma spared me a quick glance as she poured us our own bowl of queso. “Absolutely.”

“You know down in the Abo Pass where it turns three times really sharp and then levels off?”

“Right,” Grandpa said, wiping his mouth on a napkin. “The turns past the Missions?”

“That’s it,” Brooke said, heading to the fridge for a soda.

“Sure do. That’s pretty far,” he said, wondering what we were up to.

“We’re not going out there or anything,” I assured him. “We were just wondering what’s there.” I couldn’t help but think Jared might have found some kind of shelter nearby, if there was any to be had, maybe in someone’s barn or shed.

He rubbed his chin in thought, but Grandma beat him to the punch line. “The old Davis mansion is out there,” she said. “And the Aragon homestead.”

Brooklyn’s head popped up from behind the fridge door. “The Davis mansion? I’d forgotten about that.”

So had I. And it was in the same area Jared had last been seen.

“Far as I know, nobody’s lived there for years,” Grandpa said. “Probably nothing but ruins now.”

“Do you know how to get out there?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible.

“There’s a turnoff right past that last curve. Have to be careful, though. Foreigners are always taking that curve too fast.” Grandpa called anyone not from New Mexico foreigners. He cracked me up. New Mexicans took those curves just as fast as anyone else, but hard as we tried, we never convinced Grandpa of that. “What’s all this about?” he asked, munching on another cheese-covered chip.

“Oh, it’s for our science fair project,” I said before biting the bullet and trying my hand at a big black lie instead of the little white ones I was so fond of. “Speaking of which, I know we’re grounded and all, but we were wondering if we could go back to school and help Ms. Mullins set up for the science fair this afternoon.”