Rosemary Remembered - China Bayles 04 Read online

  Babe? "Nothing on Jacoby. The autopsy report is back." I told him about the missing pregnancy and added Sheila's reconstruction of an abortion as a possible motive for murder. "I'm beginning to wonder if we knew Rosemary at all," I said. "She's a mystery."

  "I guess I didn't know Jeff, either," McQuaid said, grim. "I should've figured he was capable of pulling a scam like this, though. The bastard bluffed me with a pair of tens once."

  "What are you going to do next?"

  "I couldn't find anybody at American who could give me a positive ID on Clark's photo, but I can't hang around until the shift changes. My plane to Mexico City leaves in about twenty minutes. It's a bitch to take my gun on the flight and Mexican cops are squirrely about armed gringos, so I've left it with the Brownsville PD. I'll get a hotel when I get in, start checking around, and call you at home about nine-thirty. If you've got anything new from Bubba and Matt, you can give it to me then."

  "Wouldn't you rather check with them directly?"

  I could hear his grin in his voice. "I'd a helluva lot rather talk to you than them. Anything else?"

  I considered telling him about Brian's visit to Arnold's and my scheduled consultation with La Que Sabe, but I decided against it. McQuaid thinks Ruby and her friends are flakes. Anyway, as long as I was home by nine-thirty, it didn't matter.

  "That's it for me," I said. "Is it hot down there?"

  "Hot as hell's furnace," he said. "Is the kid around? Let me talk to him."

  I handed over the phone and went to lock the windows. After a few minutes' conversation, Brian gave it back to me, looking glum. He sat on the step, dejected, Einstein on his lap.

  "That certainly went over like a lead balloon," I said to McQuaid. "What did you tell him?"

  "To stay home and do what he's told, and not to bug you about going to Arnold's." I was about to tell him that

  I intended to take him to Arnold's tonight, but he became brisk. "They're calling my plane. Consider yourself kissed top to toe and places in between." He hung up.

  The bored male voice at PSPD said Bubba had gone home for the day. When I called his house, Mrs. Bubba— Gladys, president of the Garden Club and collector of African violets — said that he was out back, tending his bees.

  "Bees?" Somehow, I hadn't thought of a police chief doing anything besides being the law. But this is Pecan Springs, where people don't just work for a living.

  "He's collecting honey." Gladys was exasperated. "It makes nice Christmas presents, but he leaves the kitchen in an awful mess when he's extracting it. Honey all over the floor. The flies think they've died and gone to heaven."

  The image of Bubba Harris hovering like a huge moth over a vat of honey almost made me forget why I'd called. But not quite.

  "Tell him I have a message from Mike McQuaid," I said, and she went to the back door to summon him.

  "Take your shoes off, Bubba," she said, loudly enough for me to hear her. "I don't want you trackin' honey onto the carpet." When he came to the phone, I pictured him clutching it in sticky hands. All this was giving me a different view of the man I'd never seen without a wet cigar stuck in one corner of his mouth.

  "Sonavabitch," he said warmly, when I told him about the Fiat in the parking lot. By the time I got to item three, he'd almost forgotten that he didn't like me.

  "Tell McQuaid we'll fax Brownsville the prints we got from Clark's house this morning. Soon's we get a match, I'll rattle Chick Burton's cage for a warrant."

  Chick (for Charles) Burton is the Adams County DA, recently appointed to fill out the term of Larry Cannon, who died of a heart attack after sinking a birdie on the ninth hole at the Pecan Springs Golf Course. Chick and I are acquainted, although I haven't seen him for some years. His father was a senior partner in the Houston firm where I worked, and we dated occasionally. Sometimes I think it's a very small world.

  "McQuaid's phoning at nine-thirty tonight," I told Bubba. "If you've got anything for him, call the house before then. I may not be there, but you can leave it on the answering machine."

  "Roger," he said. He cleared his throat, and his tone changed. "About that fella McQuaid's been worried about. Jacoby."

  I glanced at Brian sitting on the step, his chin in his hands, and felt an apprehensive shiver between my shoulder blades. "What about him?"

  " 'Pears he got himself in a mite of trouble in New Braunfels last night. Cut up a woman with a knife."

  My apprehension turned to relief. Cutting up a woman with a knife certainly violated the terms of Jacoby's early release. "Well, I guess we can stop worrying," I said. "They're sending him back to Huntsville, I suppose."

  " 'Fraid not," Bubba said, apologetic. "Slipped out the back as the depitty came in the front. We put a bulletin out on him, though," he added hastily, obviously to reassure me. "Prob'ly have him by mornin'." He paused. "Thought you'd wanta know."

  "Thanks," I said, not knowing what else to say. I hung up and called Matt, who was still at the hotel. His response ranged from a grim grunt (at the news of the Fiat and the plane ticket) to exuberant amazement when he heard about the quit claim.

  "Sweet Jesus," he breathed. "So he had a heart after all."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "What I mean is," Matt said, "that he hasn't left me holdin' the bag the way I figgered. We're in each other's wills, so the survivor gets the hotel if the other one steps in front of an eighteen-wheeler. Sounds crass as hell and Lord knows I don't wish Jeff any grief, but that quit claim's sure gonna make my lawyer happy. That little piece of paper is almost as good as a death certificate."

  It did sound crass, but I understood the problem. Without his partner, there were a good many business decisions that Matt couldn't legally make. What's more, our system of justice is slow and expensive. Even if McQuaid located Jeff and brought him back, that was just the beginning. There'd be a hearing, an arraignment, and eight or nine months later, a trial. A first-degree felony conviction would carry five years to life, which would likely be appealed. However it turned out in the end, Jeff*s defense would eat up his share of the hotel and more, meaning that Matt would either have to ante up fifty percent of the value or accept a new partner. Jeff had given his share to Matt before the lawyers could take it away from him. I could understand and forgive Mart's exuberance. I could also guess that Chick Burton would use the gift itself as another evidence of Jeff s guilt. You don't give away something handed down from your granddaddy to your daddy to you — unless you figure you've already lost it.

  "Well, is that about it?" Matt asked.

  "One other thing," I said, and relayed McQuaid's instructions about the credit cards. "If the bank officer gives you any trouble," I added, "tell him to check with Chief

  Harris to verify that the trace is necessary to a fugitive search."

  "I've already got that ball rolling," Matt said. "The bank faxed me a paper to sign about an hour ago."

  I gave him the same instruction about calling before nine-thirty that I'd given to Bubba and hung up. I looked at my watch. Six-fifteen. I thought briefly about McQuaid's interdiction, about Jacoby cutting up a woman in New Braunfels, and about La Que Sabe's invitation. I went out and locked the door behind me. Brian was standing beside a large lemon verbena, where Einstein appeared to be enjoying salad.

  "Fetch Einstein," I said. "We're going to Arnold's."

  "You got Dad to change his mind!" A joyful grin split Brian's face.

  "You might say that," I said. And then again you might not.

  Do all parents lie to their kids?

  Chapter Nine

  We exist on a plane in which we cannot perceive all the other beings sharing the earth with us, good guys and bad guys, spirits that might protect or harm us. It is just common sense to get the good spirits in our corner. This can be done with the pleasing smoke of the sage herb or other incense and with prayers left to us from olden times.... Here is mine:

  I invoke the Goddess of Protection, and my grandmother's and grandfather's spirits to s
hield me and my possessions with impenetrable power. My house will be safe from accidents, thieves, drunk drivers, and other cars. And I shall be safe in the Goddess's grace, like a child in my mother's arms. So mote it be. Blessed be.

  Zsuzsanna E. Budapest The Grandmother of Time: A Women's Book of Celebrations, Spells, and Sacred Objects for Every Month of the Year

  The temperature had been in the upper nineties and the skies relentlessly blue all day, but by the time I dropped Brian off at Arnold's house, the sky to the southeast was heavy with rolls of black-bellied clouds, the air was sticky as hot glue, and the mesquite fronds hung limp and unstirring. Lightning flashed in the clouds, and I could hear the distant rumble of thunder. On the drive over, I had kept one eye glued to the rearview mirror. If Jacoby didn't follow us to Arnold's house, I didn't need to worry. Brian would be perfectly safe there.

  "I'll be back by nine," I told Brian, letting him out of the Datsun. "Your dad's calling at nine-thirty, and I don't want to miss him. You guys stay in the house, you hear?" I rubbed the back of his neck with rough affection, then removed my hand quickly when Einstein flicked his tongue at it.

  He sighed loudly, but he gave me the Vulcan blessing as he got out of the car — the first in a long time. Maybe things between us were lightening up. I watched him until Arnold's mother opened the door and let him in. Then I drove back to town, fast, wondering if the storm would bring a day or two's respite or just raise the thermostat from broil to steam.

  Ruby lives in a large, tree-shaded Victorian that was once owned by a mutual friend who died a few years ago. She painted the outside in gray, green, and plum, wallpapered the interior walls, and scraped and refinished the floors and woodwork. Over the last couple of years, she's furnished the house with an eclectic mix of periods, cultures, and traditions that always reminds me of Ruby herself: a little bit of just about everything, tossed together with a lot of panache and little regard for rules.

  When she met me at the door, she was wearing a straw-colored tunic, heavily embroidered with colorful folk figures. Her gingery frizz was pulled back with Oriental combs, and she was barefoot. She led me to the living room, which is furnished like an art gallery. Southwestern paintings, African masks, and Appalachian textiles hang on the cream-colored walls, Navajo rugs brighten the glossy wood floor, and pottery and driftwood sculptures are arranged in the corners, with tall cacti here and there. An appropriately primal setting for La Que Sabe.

  Ondine was seated on a white futon heaped with colorful pillows. She wore a black tiered skirt and silky black blouse with a silver and turquoise Navajo belt and heavy silver necklace and bracelets. She had the look of a Native American wise woman: high cheekbones and flat facial planes, shuttered eyes, coarse gray hair drawn in wings on either side of her forehead and falling straight to her shoulders. She responded to my greeting with a nearly imperceptible lift of her lips that might or might not have been a smile.

  Sheila was already there, sitting cross-legged on a purple zafu in yellow shorts and a white blouse, looking as if she had better things to do. There was an empty zafu beside Sheila, but I can't imagine a worse torture than being forced to assume the lotus posture, or even a half-lotus, for more than thirty seconds. I sat on the other end of Ondine's futon, to Ruby's right.

  Ruby took a smudge bundle off the mantle and lit it, then walked around the room, waving the smoking twigs in the air and saying things under her breath. The room began to smell pleasantly of smoldering sage and cedar. Ondine didn't take any notice when Ruby made several passes over her head, but Sheila glanced at me with an I-don't-get-it look. I mouthed the words "purification ritual" at her, and she made a wry face. If the smudge was supposed to cleanse us of skepticism and impure thoughts, as well as to drive evil spirits from the room, it wasn't doing much for Sheila.

  When Ruby finished smudging, she went to the French doors at one side of the room. As she closed them and drew the heavy white drapes, there was a bright flash of lightning and a loud clap of thunder that made all of us jump.

  "I suppose you want the room dark," Ruby said to Ondine, and turned off the lights on either side of the mantel, leaving only a large pottery lamp lit on the table behind the sofa. Beside it was a clay statue of Coatlicue, the ancient Aztec Great Mother, sprouting two snake heads, a skirt of tangled snakes, and a horrific necklace of human hearts and severed hands. Not all goddesses are beautiful.

  Sheila gave a hard chuckle. "I imagine it's easier in the dark," she said, her tone implying that darkness was a good cover for psychic fraud.

  I smiled a little. Sheila may look sweet and pretty but she has the left brain of a cop. She's only interested in what she can weigh and measure. The rest is so much hokum. A few years ago, I shared that viewpoint. But after hanging around Ruby for a while, I am willing to stipulate that there are some things in this world that don't yield to quantitative analysis. A lot of it's hokum, yes. But some of it isn't. You have to be there to know the difference.

  Ondine sketched a shrug with her narrow shoulders. "It isn't what I want," she said, "but what La Que Sabe wants."

  "What does she want?" Sheila growled.

  Ondine fixed Sheila's face with an impassive gaze. "We will know when she tells us," she said. She added, with a small smile, "You do not need to fear, Smart Cookie. She Who Knows, knows that your heart is good."

  Sheila was about to retort when Ruby intervened.

  "This isn't a seance, either," she said as she placed a beeswax candle on the table in front of Ondine. "It's a channeling. There's a difference."

  "Oh, yeah?" Sheila demanded. "Like what? She goes into a trance, doesn't she? There's some weird supernatural being hanging around, isn't there? If it quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck — "

  "Sheila," I said, "it's okay." I leaned over and patted her hand. It was cold, although the room was very warm. "It's safe. Nothing's going to happen."

  Sheila cleared her throat. "I just don't like spooky stuff." She glanced over her shoulder at the shadowed corner.

  The drapes closed out the gathering storm and what was left of the daylight. Ruby lit the candle, then turned out the lamp. The candle flickered, then steadied and burned brighter as she sank down on her knees on a tas-seled paisley cushion and folded her hands in her lap, giving the impression that she consults the spirits everyday of the week—as perhaps she does. Her tarot cards are in a wooden casket on the table, a bowl of I Ching coins sits on the table, and a large painted horoscope — Ruby's birth chart, rendered symbolically—hangs over the fireplace. Maybe it's fairer to say that the spirits consult Ruby.

  "It's not spooky, Sheila," she said reassuringly. "It's just an ordinary room. Just take a deep breath and try to relax. You're sending out waves of negative cbi, and your aura is awfully dark. Your stuff might keep La Que Sabe from coming through."

  But the room didn't seem ordinary any longer. Nothing concrete had changed—the furniture was the same, the art, the candle in the dusky dark, the sweet fragrance of smoldering sage and cedar—but the room held an energy that had nothing to do with us. It wasn't anything I could see, anything I could touch or smell or hear, but I sensed it, nevertheless: a gathering urgency, a canny concentration of power as wild and unruly as the storm outside. I glanced at Ondine. Her hands were clasped, her eyes closed, her lashes dark against her pale cheeks. She looked as if she were asleep. Or dead.

  A few moments — how many, I couldn't say — passed. Finally, Sheila cleared her throat. "Excuse me for interrupting," she said in a loud voice, "but can we open a window? It's getting stuffy in here."

  It was stuffy. The air seemed to have an oppressive weight and texture, as if we were seated in the burial chamber of a pyramid and tons of rock were pressing down on us, compressing the air, making it soupy. Half-giddy, I realized how ancient our air is, millions, billions of years old, breathed in and breathed out by millions, billions of beings, human and otherwise. An ancient communion, a wordless, soundless liturgy, linking creatures with no comm
on inheritance other than birth, death, and breath.

  Ruby shook her head. "Leave the window for now, Sheila," she whispered. "It feels like La Que Sabe's about to come through. Anyway, it's raining too hard."

  And suddenly it was raining, coming down in lashing sheets mixed with small hail, to judge from the sound as it hit the porch roof. The room was lit by a flash of blue-white lightning, flaring like a torch across our pale faces. An impatient clatter of thunder rattled at the window panes, as if the storm wanted to come in.

  Ondine's eyes opened. "I see that we are all here," La -Que Sabe said, her deep voice resonant and a little amused. "It is good that we are all here."

  "Really," Sheila said desperately, "I wish we could open — "

  "Shush!" Ruby said.

  Ondine turned toward me. Her mouth was shadowed, pale eyes lit as if the hghtning had set off an inner blaze. Her gaze transfixed me for a long moment.

  "Your friend who is searching, he follows the wrong trail." The voice was taut, vibrating, a strummed wire. "He seeks the wrong man."

  I blinked. "The wrong man?"

  "It's Robbins!" Ruby yelped. "I told you so!" She clapped her hand over her mouth. "Oops. Excuse me."

  Ondine was still looking at me — no, not at me, but into me, as if I were transparent. It was as if she had found something of interest inside me and was pulling it out, turning it over to examine it, approving it, putting it back.

  "You are the one who will find the killer," she said. Her face was a flat, expressionless mask in the dimness of the room, but her eyes brimmed with light. "Tell the boy's father to abandon his search and come home at once. The child is in peril. You have much to fear."

  "Brian's in peril?" I leaned forward, urgent.

  Ondine's voice became hard. "There is a man who wears a snake."

  A snake? Jacoby's tattoo! A cloud of black, unreasoning fear rose up out of the most primitive core of my being and blotted out everything else. I whispered, "Was it Jacoby who killed Rosemary? Is that why McQuaid's after the wrong — ?"