In My Dreams. Muriel Jensen

simile. “A few of them were not very good to those children. I often heard angry shouting. I called the police several times, but they never took action. I don’t know what she told them, but those children stayed with her till the day she shot and killed that last boyfriend.”

      Ben had told her a little about Jack’s childhood and the murder that had resulted in him becoming one of the Palmers. But she didn’t know very much about Jack’s mother. “You wonder how that can be allowed to happen.”

      “That family was all over the front page of the newspaper. It doesn’t seem right that a child should witness a murder at eight years old and then have to go to war and see men get killed when he’s an adult.”

      “It’s a rotten world sometimes.”

      “It is. More for some people than for others.”

      Ben had told her Jack had been blown up in a Humvee on two separate occasions, involved in several firefights and nicked in the earlobe by a bullet while he’d been loading a mortar shell on his last deployment. She couldn’t imagine how life altering it must be to come so close to death.

      “I gave them things to eat on more than one occasion,” Margaret said. “If it hadn’t been for that boy, those little girls would have gone hungry. He took care of them all the time. And then that murder happened.” She shook her head despairingly.

      No wonder Jack had nightmares, Sarah thought.

      “Well, shall I tell him you said hello?” Sarah asked, poking at her half of the muffin. Her appetite was waning. “Would he remember you?”

      Margaret nodded and smiled. “I think he would. Tell him I’m the lady with the peanut butter cookies.”

      “I will. How come I’ve never had your peanut butter cookies?”

      Margaret reached out to pinch her cheek. “Because you’re not a hungry little waif with a world of sadness in your eyes.”

      * * *

      JOHN BALDRICH, WHO’D been an ER nurse before he’d started Coast Care five years before, welcomed Sarah into his small downtown office at the back of Johnson Medical Supply. He was tall and professional looking with gray hair and glasses. His office, too, with its dark paneling and wall of medical books, looked scholarly and tweedy.

      After exchanging pleasantries and asking about her clients, he smiled, his manner becoming paternal.

      “Sarah, I know how you feel about your experience in caring for children, but it’s almost criminal that you’ve signed on here as a home-care worker rather than as a licensed nurse. You cook and make beds and do laundry, rather than assess your clients’ conditions, give medications and make more important contributions to their health. You’re like an orchid disguised as a daisy.”

      He grew orchids at home and won competitions all around the state for his perfect specimens. She appreciated the sincerity of his compliment. “Thank you, John. But I really like what I’m doing now.” She wanted nothing to do with a more important role in patient care. She liked this one.

      He nodded, though the expression in his eyes seemed troubled. “Margaret calls me once a month to tell me how much she likes you. That you’re caring and conscientious and go the extra mile.”

      “Good. I’m glad she’s happy.”

      He shuffled papers on his desk and shifted position in his chair, clearly preparing to change the subject. “About the Cooper Building,” he said.

      “Yes.”

      “All the agencies that serve seniors are getting together to put on a fund-raiser to help them buy the building. Each group is sending a representative to form a committee. Will you be ours? I’ll clear you for whatever time you need to make meetings and do whatever you have to do. And I’ll pay you for that time because I know you’re living partly on savings.”

      “Goodness, John...”

      “I’d like this to work for the seniors,” he went on. “It would be nice if they had a place of their own where they couldn’t be ejected on a landlord’s whim. I’m not sure of the status of plumbing and wiring, but that can always be fixed once they have the building.”

      “That’s expensive stuff.”

      “It is, but I know a guy...” He grinned. “So, will you do it? Represent Coast Care?”

      “I guess. Usually, I’m not much of a meetings person. I like to do what I want to do without a lot of haggling.”

      “It’s not haggling, it’s negotiating, compromising. And anyway, a lot of the prep work is already done. Also, somebody knows a thirtyish member of the Cooper family who originally owned the building. Bobby Jay Cooper’s not exactly a country-western star, but he does the state fair circuit and has a few CDs that have sold very well. He’s willing to come to Beggar’s Bay to perform for us. Plus, we’ll have a talent show and he’s agreed to be the judge.”

      “A talent show,” she repeated doubtfully.

      “Your client Margaret Brogan taught music in the school system for years. She should be able to recommend some participants for you. As well as participate herself.”

      “Why do we need that if we have a country-western singer?”

      “Just to get more people involved. People love to come out and see their neighbors embarrass themselves.”

      She had to smile at that. “Sure. I’ll do it. As long as I don’t have to sing.”

      “Great.” He handed her a slip of paper. “First meeting is next Tuesday. Library meeting room.”

      * * *

      JACK MADE FOUR piles in the backyard to organize the redistribution of the contents of the four rooms in the carriage house. It had a main room with a small fireplace, a small bedroom, a tiny kitchen and a tinier bathroom. He had a pile for lumber his father had saved from various projects—Gary Palmer owned a construction business—and one for empty boxes that could be useful sometime but were in the way right now; he could break those down and tape them together when the need arose. Plastic tubs of Christmas decorations were handier to have in the carriage house than in the basement, where they had to be hauled up and down steep steps, but he or Ben could do that when the time came, and there were a few boxes of childhood toys and games his mother still brought out when friends with children came to visit.

      He filled a trash barrel with pieces of wood that had warped. A branch from an old cedar tree had gone through a window at the back during the last windstorm and had apparently not been noticed. The box that had been stored under it was wet.

      He pulled the shards of glass out of the window and placed them in an empty box. Then he used the bottom of another box to cover the hole until he could replace the window.

      He hauled the barrel and the box of glass outside and surveyed the now almost-empty carriage house. He felt himself drift backward into the memory of hiding out in here when he and Ben were seven, before his mother had killed Brauer and his life, such as it was, had fallen apart. Ben had broken a kitchen window with an awesome but slightly misdirected two-base hit and Jack had been staying out of Roscoe’s way. Roscoe Brauer had been the fourth man in his mother’s life that he recalled, and the worst.

      When he was three, his father had died somewhere over the desert when the light plane he was transporting illegal drugs in experienced engine failure and crashed.

      After that, his mother had taken up with Miguel Ochoa, who’d kept her supplied with cocaine. Elizabeth Corazon—they’d called her Corie—Ochoa was born when Jack was four. She’d been pretty homely, but had grown a little prettier and been a complete pain in the neck. She’d broken every toy Jack owned.

      Miguel, who’d been a relatively nice guy despite his occupation, left a year later after many prolonged arguments with Jack’s mother. That had begun her serious descent into despondency and mindless addiction to methamphetamines.