Page 79 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
“Okay,” I told her. “That’s fair.”
AFTER LUNCH, AS I WASabout to drive away from O’Grady’s and head back to the Sea-Mist for some more filthy work, Sheriff Durbin called.
After I spoke with him, I took a detour and went to Mendoza Meat & Fish.
Early afternoons, when the fish was fresh off the boat, were Roman’s busiest times, but he did a fairly steady business throughout the day, with few spells where the shop was customer-free. When I went in at about 1:30, Roman and Deanna, one of his employees, were alone in the shop. Deanna was at the slicer, refreshing a tray of deli ham. Roman was butchering a pig.
He did most of his work behind the raw meat case, in full view of any customers. The only work he did in back was gutting and skinning—the parts that might put his customers off their food.
A lot of small butchers, maybe most, bought whole sides of meat from industrial slaughterhouses, with the grossest work already finished, and they simply separated the side into cuts for sale. Roman, however, was a traditional butcher, meaning the meat he sold had been breathing right up to the moment he’d bought it from the rancher. He did every bit of the butchering himself—or Manny, his apprentice/assistant manager, did it.
To me, this fact was both appealing and disconcerting. I enjoyed and admired the way he continued the ‘old world’ traditions of his family, but it did kind of freak me out at first that he spends his days cutting animals open and ripping their guts out.
I’m not a vegetarian or vegan by any stretch, but I will admit to some hypocrisy: I love animals. All animals (as long as they don’t have more than four legs), and maybe especially cows, withtheir big, beautiful brown eyes. I like me a cheeseburger, but I’d rather not think about where my meat comes from. I prefer a little distance between the sweet, soulful eyes and the delicious taste.
Roman loves animals, too—and he argues that the way he does his job as a butcher is consistent with loving and respecting animals. He knows the animals he buys don’t die in pain, because he sees their deaths happen. He deals solely with organic, free-range, humane ranches (there’s a fair number of those in NorCal), so he can be confident the animals lived a safe, gentle life beforehand. His argument is the distance people make between an animal’s soulful eyes and the meat in their bun is where the damage happens. It’s the distance that allows industrial slaughterhouses to operate the way they do. When people avert their eyes, they allow abuse to happen.
And he’s right, of course. I’m just saying it’s been a journey for me.
But I digress. On this particular day, he was carving up a pig while Deanna sliced cooked ham for the deli case. They both looked up as I came in, and Roman’s smile burst wide, as always.
“Hey, querida!” He set his big knife down and wiped his hands on a towel tucked into his apron. “Didn’t expect to see you until tonight. Did lunch go okay?”
We met at the front of the meat case, and he kissed me without putting his arms around me. He was careful about where he put his hands when he’d been working with meat.
“Yeah, lunch was good. How’s your day going?
“Good as always. What’s up?”
“Can we talk for a minute?”
He gave me a concerned frown. “Sure. You okay? Wyatt?”
“We’re good. The sheriff called. They arrested Manfred. He wants me to go to Crescent City and do a line-up to confirm it. I thought they only did lineupstoidentify a suspect.”
“I don’t know. Most of what I know about cops comes from TV and movies. But that’s great! They arrested him! Cam must have gotten enough evidence to satisfy him.”
“Yeah.”
News of Manfred’s arrest wasn’t as uplifting as I’d thought it would be. My primary emotion was wariness, like I expected the sheriff to pull a fast one on me. That was silly, sure, but wariness was like an old pair of jeans—fit me really well and so well-worn I barely noticed I was wearing it.
“They want me to go to Crescent City now, this afternoon—”
“You want me to come with you?”
I did. A lot. “I’d love that, but no. I might need you to pick Wyatt up, though. He’s got choir after school, so he doesn’t get out until five. I can probably do it, but—”
“Say no more. I got him. Why don’t we just plan for me to pick him up. Then you don’t have to worry about figuring out if you’ll be able to.”
“I want to pick him up if I can,” I told him. If this arrest was real, if Darryl Manfred had truly been behind the flood at the Sea-Mist, and if the sheriff had enough evidence to arrest, then this was a major turning point for me and Wyatt. The attack had been on us. We’d survived the past year and a half together, just the two of us. We had support now, and strong hope for a good future, but we’d sailed the choppy waters since Micah’s death alone. I wanted some time alone with my kid.
“Okay,” Roman said with a smile. “Just text or call if you need me to take over. I’ll be ready when you do.”
He really was a perfect human. I put my arms around his neck and thanked him with a kiss.
THIRTY-TWO: Heart to Heart
“You’re quiet, Wy,” I said, rocking my shoulder into his. “I’d like you to talk to me if you can.”
