Page 19 of Skin Game
“Since I’m retired and can do what I want with my time. Open the damn envelope.”
Gabe blew out a gust of air but turned the envelope over and unbent the metal brackets so he could lift the flap. He bowed his head and peered inside it, then tilted it and let the contents slide out onto the coffee table. Several black-and-white snapshot-sized photos slipped onto the table’s pitted surface. Casey and Elton let Gabe look through them first, but it didn’t take him long. He shook his head after a minute or so.
“I don’t recognize anyone in these. Do you, Elton?” He handed the pictures over.
Elton took his glasses off so he could peer at the photographs Gabe thrust into his hand, his nose almost touching the photo paper. Casey felt like they were all holding their breath and the various ambient background sounds became loud, almost too much. The tick of the fridge. The click of an old antenna wire against the roof. He swore he could hear Keith and Bowie breathing.
“Nope,” Elton finally said, handing them back to Gabriel. “I don’t recognize any of them right off the bat. Not sure why I would. That last one seems familiar, but I can’t place it. These look like maybe they were taken in the late forties or fifties if that car is anything to go by.”
Impatient to see, Casey tugged the photos from Gabe’s grip and stared down at the black-and-white shots, like he, the youngest of them all, would be able to discern something Elton and Gabe could not.
The top one showed a young man and woman standing close together in front of what was now a collector’s automobile. An Edsel or Oldsmobile, some kind of massive American car with fins, maybe a Chrysler. The background was out of focus, but there were a few trees and an indistinct building off to one side. Were they married? Were they setting off on a honeymoon or just celebrating a special day?
The next was of a baby, old enough to crawl through grass toward the photographer. Boy or girl, they had a bonnet on their head, the strings tied under their chin to keep it from falling off. The child grinned toothlessly at the camera. Again, the background was indeterminate—grass and tree shapes, nothing identifiable.
Last was a forested landscape with a body of water in the foreground. Casey narrowed his eyes; something about the shot made him think hedidknow where this had been taken. Unfortunately, the Olympic Peninsula had changed so much over the decades—and not in all good ways—that he wasn’t positive.
Stooping, Casey dropped the pictures on top of the table and tapped the landscape. “This last one feels familiar, like Elton said, but I can’t place it. Maybe the baby is your mom?”
“Might as well see what else is here,” said Gabe, ignoring Casey’s baby comment.
A few minutes later, he’d reached the bottom of the box and had haphazardly laid the contents out on the coffee table.
“Mixtapes!” Gabe picked one of the cassette tapes, turning it over in his hand to read the handwritten playlist and nodding while he perused it. “Nothing earth-shattering here. The Beatles, Elvis, Joni Mitchell—Heidi always did like her—Donna Summer, Patti Smith. Oh, Velvet Underground. Wow.”
“What’s that?” Elton pointed to a slim volume.
It looked to Casey like a product manual or a catalog, but the title was obscured. Gabe set down the cassette he’d been holding. Casey knew he’d seen the booklet when he’d first reached in but had decided to ignore it. The cassettes were probably more interesting to him, more of an insight into Heidi as a young person.
With reluctance, he pushed the other papers aside so they could all read the title.
“Oh, lookie here, a yearbook. Mom was sentimental after all.”
NINE
GABRIEL – TUESDAY EVENING
Across the top of the oversized booklet in faded lettering wasWestfort High School 1978,Home of the Puffins.
“The Puffins?” Gabe said. He looked at Casey and then Elton, his eyebrows reaching for his hairline.
“Yep. One of Washington’s best-kept secrets, the tufted puffins. Unfortunately, the population is dwindling for reasons we don’t understand,” Casey replied, coming around to perch his hip on the arm of the couch. The couch creaked under his weight.
“Do not break my furniture. This thing is vintage.”
“Vintage Ikea maybe,” Casey muttered, shifting again.
“Maybe so, maybe so. It keeps my ass off the carpet, so don’t break it.”
He glanced down at the yearbook, where a tufted puffin floated serenely across the cover, bobbing in the waters of the Salish Sea. “How did I not know about this?” Gabe waved the booklet. “Puffins! Real puffins.”
Gabe was not any kind of birder, but he could filibuster with the best of them. Learning that puffins were a local high school’s mascot was officially the best part of this weird-ass week so far,and it was only Tuesday. Much better than possessed furniture and strange young women claiming he was their father.
“Quit your stalling and see if Heidi’s in that book,” Elton ordered. “Or else hand it over and let one of us take a look at it.”
Gabe narrowed his eyes in response to Elton’s bossy but correct assumption that he was avoiding opening it. Heidi had saved the damn thing for a reason. Still, Gabe felt apprehensive, his natural curiosity at bay for the time being. If Casey and Elton hadn’t been there, he would’ve stuck the boxes in a closet and ignored them forever. Which both of them probably knew.
“Fine.” He sat down on the opposite end of the couch from Elton and flipped the book open to the first page.