“Thank you, young lady,” Mrs. Dearborn said. “That’s a big help.”
“Thanks from me, too,” the man behind the counter said when Joanna turned back in his direction. “Sorry to keep you waiting. We’re a little short-handed in the office today. Can I help you?”
“You are Mr. Quick, then?” Joanna ascertained.
“That’s me,” he said with a nod.
Joanna reached into her purse, extracted her badge and ID, and held them up. “Sheriff Joanna Brady,” she told him. “Is this a good time to talk?”
“Sure,” he said. “Just a minute.” He pulled open a door that led into a cavernous shop area. Sharp metallic-smelling smoke from a burning welding torch wafted into the office. “Hey, Leon,” he called. “Kathy’s still at lunch. Could you come watch the front counter for a few minutes?”
A few seconds later, a young man in a pair of faded blue coveralls riddled with burned spots came sauntering into the office. Once he arrived, Jay Quick ushered Joanna into his private office. His desk was a serviceable, battleship-gray metal one. The top of the desk, made of gray linoleum, matched not only the front and sides of the desk but the floor and walls as well. The whole room, from file cabinets to door, was covered with that same dull, unremitting gray. The effect might have been impossibly depressing if it hadn’t been for the collection of copper-framed art prints that covered almost every available inch of wall surface. There were some Old Masters scattered here and there, but mostly the prints were colorful renditions of well-known Impressionists—Monet, Degas, and Renoir.
“Nice art,” Joanna said, admiring the collection.
Jay Quick nodded. “I have my mother to thank for that,” he said. “She may have come from a place most people think of as a backwater, but she maintained that living in Council Bluffs, Iowa, was no excuse for not knowing about the world outside the city limits—fine art and music included.”
“She sounds like an unusual woman,” Joanna said.
Jay nodded. “She was,” he said. “I still miss her. But let’s get down to business, Sheriff Brady. I’m sure you’re not here to admire my framed art or discuss my mother. I’ll be glad to give you whatever help I can, but I’m not all that sure what I can tell you.”
“First, if you will, try to remember exactly what Lucy Ridder said to you on the phone.”
“Not all that much. She did identify herself, of course. Said she was Lucy Ridder and that she was looking for Mrs. Quick. At first I didn’t recognize the name and thought she wanted to speak to my wife. Finally, though, I figured out who she was and that she was trying to reach my mother. She said she wanted to talk to her—that she needed to talk to her. She made it sound important, like it was some kind of dire emergency.”
“She didn’t say what that emergency was?”
“No. Not even a hint.”
“Do you have any idea why she would call your mother?” Joanna asked. “Were they close?”
“I don’t know if ‘close’ is the right word,” Jay said. “I know Lucy made a big impression on my mom—a favorable impression. And maybe that went both ways. I know Mother talked about Lucy for years afterward, always hoping that, wherever she was, she was all right.”
“You told me on the phone that your mother was Lucy’s teacher?”
“Not a real teacher, like at school. Mother was Lucy’s ballet instructor at the Lohse YMCA. You see, all her life, Mom lived and breathed dancing. Even after she retired, she could never quite get it out of her system. When she came out here to visit us that one year, she heard that the Lohse YMCA downtown had lost its ballet instructor on a temporary basis. The woman had had a premature baby and was on extended maternity leave. The Y was strapped enough for funds that they couldn’t handle having one person on maternity leave and, at the same time, pay to hire a replacement. Rather than see ballet lessons canceled for several months in a row, Mother volunteered to fill in. She worked at it that whole winter.
“I remember her telling me, a week or so after she started, about a little girl who came to her class, a little girl wearing thick glasses. When Mother asked her what she wanted, she said she wanted to be Maria Tallchief. Mother said, ‘Oh, so you want to be an Indian?’ The little girl said, ‘I already am an Indian. I want to be a ballerina.’
“According to Mother, one of the nuns from Lucy’s school had evidently given her a book to read about a young Native American woman who had gone on to become a world-class ballerina. Lucy couldn’t have been very old at the time, only second grade or so, and the story made a big impression on her. So that’s how Mother and Lucinda Ridder met. Once Lucy was in the program, she loved it. She came every day after school, either to take lessons or to practice. As I remember, she attended a Catholic school somewhere near downtown, and came to the Y on the bus.”