Софи Келли - A Midwinter's Tail

Burtis was sitting at the counter at Fern’s when I got there, his huge hands wrapped around an equally huge mug of coffee. I’d never gone to Fern’s for breakfast and gotten there before him. I had no idea what time he got up in the morning, but it was clearly very, very early.

I slid onto the stool next to Burtis. The place was empty except for four long-distance truckers sitting together at one of the middle booths.

Peggy Sue turned and smiled at me. “Coffee?” she asked.

“Oh, please,” I said.

She poured me a cup a big as the one Burtis had and set it in front of me along with a pitcher of cream and a little metal bowl filled with sugar packets.

I could feel Burtis’s eyes on me, but he didn’t speak until I’d added cream and sugar to my cup and taken a very large sip. “Morning, Kathleen,” he said then.

I leaned my right elbow on the counter. “Good morning, Burtis,” I replied.

He looked over at Peggy and held up two fingers. She nodded and went through the swinging door into the kitchen.

“Big Breakfast okay with you?” Burtis asked.

“Yes, thank you,” I said. I took another sip from my oversize mug. My fingers were beginning to thaw out.

“I hear your boyfriend didn’t find anything over at Olivia Ramsey’s kitchen,” he said after another stretch of silence.

“I heard the same thing,” I said.

Burtis took a long drink of his own coffee. “Dayna and I were just kids when we got married. You probably already heard that.”

I nodded. “I did.”

“She came here with her parents on vacation. Probably vain of me to say it, but I cleaned up pretty good in those days.”

I smiled at him. “I believe it.”

He ran a hand over his stubbled chin. “For me, it was just going to be a summer fling. I know that’s kind of a shameful thing to admit, but it’s the truth.”

His mouth moved and I waited without speaking. “She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and she looked at me like I could pull the stars down and hand them to her.” He looked at me. “That’s a powerful feeling, Kathleen.”

“I can see how it would be.”

“She ran away,” he said. “She came back here. And we got married.” He turned back to his coffee cup. “Brady came along nine months and a day after the wedding.”

Peggy Sue came out then with our breakfasts: scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, fried potatoes with onions and yellow peppers because tomatoes were out of season and two thick slices of raisin toast. We ate in silence for several minutes. When Peggy filled up our mugs again, I set my fork down and shifted a bit on my stool so I could look at Burtis. “You said that Dayna was allergic to pistachios.”

He nodded. “That’s right. We spent one night in a hotel in Minneapolis. She had some kinda dessert with those nuts on it. She would have died on the spot if there hadn’t been a doctor having dinner at the next table.”

“She didn’t know she was allergic?”

Burtis shook his head. “Dayna was a picky eater. A lot of stuff she’d never tried.”

“I don’t remember seeing a medic alert bracelet,” I said, spearing half a sausage with my fork.

“That’s because most of the time she didn’t wear one,” Burtis said with a snort of derision. “At least not when we were together. Doctor said she needed it and I bought one for her, but she didn’t think it looked fashionable.” I remembered Olivia saying pretty much the same thing. He reached for his coffee again. “I doubt that changed. She did carry one of those autoinjector things like Olivia Ramsey had. Or at least she used to.”

“Who knew about the allergy?”

He shrugged. “Far as I know, nobody outside of me. It’s not as common as peanuts. She had a bad reaction to poison ivy one time, though. Doctor said it’s the same family.”

I used a bit of toasted raisin bread to mop up a few stray baked beans and sauce on my plate.

“Burtis, why am I here?” I asked.

He looked at me and nothing in his face could tell me what he was thinking. I made a mental note never to play poker with the man. He had no tells or tics that I could see.

“Looks to me like you’re eatin’ breakfast,” he said, his tone affable.

“You don’t think your ex-wife’s death was an accident?” I said. I picked up my fork and finished the last of my potatoes while I waited to see how he’d answer my question.

He let out a slow breath. “I think it’s a possibility,” he finally said. “And based on the questions your boyfriend has been asking, I think he’s leanin’ the same way.”

I reached for my coffee again. “So you want me to do what? Find out what Marcus is thinking?”

Burtis gave a snort of laughter. “I think I know you well enough by now to know that’s never going to happen.”

He pushed his plate away, turned to face me and his expression grew serious. “Dayna and me were too damn young to get married. And way too different. A lot of the blame—hell, most of it—is mine. I was gone from sunup to sundown and she had babies and no help. I can’t fault her for feelin’ overwhelmed and leaving.”

I threaded my fingers through the handle of my mug. “All these years, she never came back for a visit?”

“She was unhappy here, unhappy with me. She stayed in touch with the boys: She wrote letters, and she remembered their birthdays and Christmas and such.” He sighed. “It wasn’t perfect, but what is?”

“So, why did she show up now, after so many years?”

He put his huge hand over the top of his coffee mug. It engulfed the heavy stoneware cup. “I swear, Kathleen, I don’t know.”

I had a million questions swirling in my head. “Did you talk to her before the reception?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Lita called. Told me she’d seen Dayna at Eric’s Place. I called Brady. Then I called the other two at school. I thought she’d show up out to the house. When she didn’t, I figured I’d just wait until she did. I’d waited more than twenty years for her to get in touch. I could wait a little bit longer.”

“I saw her come over to you and Lita,” I said. “At the Stratton. What did she say?”

He picked up his cup and set it back down again. “She said hello. She told me I looked well and she told Lita she liked her dress.”

“That’s it?”

He nodded. “Yep, that’s it.”

I pressed my lips together, trying to come up with the best way to say what I needed to say. “Burtis, even if Dayna’s death wasn’t an accident, it’s not something I should be involved in.”

“Because of Marcus Gordon,” he said.

I ran my finger along the edge of the counter. “Yes, because of Marcus. And because I’m not a police officer.”

Burtis’s expression didn’t change. “That didn’t stop you when Mike Glazer died and Harrison Taylor asked you to see what you could find out. Or when that whole side of the hill let go up at Wisteria Hill and those bones were uncovered. You put all the pieces together and figured out how he died and gave Roma some peace about her father.”

I turned to face him more directly. “Both of those times are different,” I said, narrowing my gaze at him. “Roma is one of my best friends and Harrison and I are very close. Not to mention that Marcus and I weren’t together either of those times.”

“So you and me? We’re not friends?”

It was one of those questions that had no right answer. So I didn’t answer it. Instead I said, “Every time I’ve gotten involved in one of Marcus’s cases, it’s cost me. He’s a good man and a good police officer. Let him do his job.”

“Marcus is a good man,” Burtis said. He gave me a half smile. “It surprise you I think that?”