Gay Hendricks - The First Rule of Ten

We shared a moment of silent appreciation for first loves.

As we entered downtown, John D directed me to a lot near the bustling farmer’s market. He hitched up his pants, and off we went on our mission. Exactly what the mission was, wasn’t very clear to me, except that I wanted to get close to some of the Children of Paradise, if possible, and observe them away from their native turf. As we entered the market, John D grunted, “Over there.”

He steered my eyes down a narrow lane of vegetable stalls crowded with shoppers. At the far end, I spotted three people in robes, two men and a woman with a long rope of hair. They were bent over what looked like a stacked wall of leafy greens.

“That the woman you were telling me about?”

He nodded.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go see what we can stir up.”

One young acolyte was filling a pushcart with bunches of green and purple kale. He had bug eyes and a weak chin. I dismissed him as the peon of the group.

The other man was a different story. He stood slightly to one side, his eyes sweeping the Thursday morning crowd. His robe could not hide the fact that he was muscled and very fit. His stance was not so much relaxed as coiled, but probably no one but a detective would notice that.

I saw his eyes narrow at something across the way. A rapid series of minute but distinct responses flashed across his face. It was like watching a slide show as he shuttered through a range of feelings, from suspicion, to anger, to-and this made no sense-what looked like a kind of … vulnerable pride?

I followed his gaze to a young couple. The guy had the flat-topped buzz cut and green camouflage pants of an army man on leave. He had his arm around a young, very pretty woman. She had a wide, lumpy cloth wrapped around her waist and chest, and I realized somewhere in there a baby was tucked. I looked back at the man in the robe. Interesting; something about this scene both angered and touched him.

Lookout Man shot his eyes in my direction, as if he felt my stare, and I quickly shifted my attention to the nubby avocados in front of me. I picked one up and studied its skin.

The threesome moved on. I observed from a distance. The woman appeared to be the produce scout. She’d reconnoiter each stall, poking and prodding, and then point to what she wanted. Peon and Lookout Man loaded up the scales, and she’d pay the vendor with bills peeled off a fat roll. Then she’d move to the next stall as they piled the pushcart with enough foodstuffs to feed a small army.

I ambled closer to the woman, careful to keep one eye on the bodyguard. As I neared her, I could see that, like Barbara Maxey, she was older than she first appeared. At least 50 in her case. She had a desert-weathered face, and her lank brown hair was banded into a ponytail that reached halfway down her back. John D drew next to me.

“Definitely her,” he murmured.

She moved over to peruse a huge stall piled with root vegetables-russet potatoes, crimson and gold beets, bunched carrots, and a big pile of bulbous fennel.

We hadn’t rehearsed anything, so John D’s direct approach caught me by surprise.

“Hello there, young lady,” he called out. “Remember me? I’m your next-door neighbor, John D.”

She looked up. Sure enough, she smiled.

Her eyes cut over to me, then to her two robed companions. They were busy stacking their cart. She returned her attention to John D.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “The Prophet speaks of you often.”

John D slapped his thigh in delight. “He does? What’s he say about ol’ John D?”

“He says to be polite to you.” She glanced at me again, and gnawed on a cuticle.

John D caught her eye-flick in my direction. “This is my son, Charlie. He just got outta the navy. He used to be friends with that blond lady, the other one who came down here sometimes. What was her name again, son?”

“Barbara,” I said, watching the woman closely.

“Sister Barbara?” she whispered. Confusion rippled across her face, then panic, as if two worlds were about to collide and she had no tools for surviving the ensuing explosion.

I nodded. “She came to see me just before she died.”

“Sister Barbara’s dead?”

“We think she may have been murdered,” John D added.

She wheeled, doubling over as if to stifle an upswell of grief. Her elbow knocked a stack of potatoes, sending them tumbling. Several people moved in to retrieve the spilled tubers, and the hubbub acted as a flare to Lookout Man and his sidekick. They quickly finished filling their cart and slalomed it through the crowd. As they rolled closer, the woman used her fists to scrub the tears from her creased cheeks. She took a deep breath and was suddenly, eerily calm.

“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.