Blood Orange: A China Bayles Mystery Page 2

  “Sounds tricky,” I said.

  Ruby’s laugh was brittle. “Sounds a lot like Ramona. You know what she’s like when she makes up her mind to something. It’s full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. I hope this guy’s wife really wants a divorce, because if that’s what Ramona wants, it will happen.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” I said. I wouldn’t say this to Ruby, but her sister is one of the most manipulative women I have ever met. Sipping my tea, I went back to the subject of the brewery. “McQuaid and I took a tour of Comanche Creek and tasted some of their beers. It’s an attractive place. Have you been out there?”

  The Comanche Creek Brewing Company is just off Limekiln Road, about ten miles west of Pecan Springs and just a couple of miles from my house. It occupies a large industrial-looking metal building with a smaller, limestone structure tacked to the front. The whole thing is parked on a stony hilltop, surrounded by a low forest of Ashe junipers, mesquite, prickly pear cactus, and bluebonnets, in season—all very Texas. The small stone building in front is the tasting room.

  Ruby buttered her muffin. “I know where it is, but I’ve never been inside. I’m a wine girl myself. Beer is for guys.”

  “It might be a calorie thing,” I said. “But when we did the tour, women made up about half the group, and they seemed to enjoy the tasting.” I paused. “Tell me how your sister met her new guy. This brewmaster, I mean. Did she just happen to drop in out there for a taste or two?”

  “Kate told Ramona that the brewery was looking for an investor and suggested that she consider it.” Kate Rodriguez is the partner of Ruby’s twentysomething daughter, Amy. Together, Kate and Amy have a beautiful little girl, Grace, now almost four, who is the apple of Ruby’s eye. Kate is an accountant, and a good one. Ruby and I use her for our businesses, and McQuaid and Blackie are her clients, too.

  “If Kate recommends it, the brewery must have something going for it,” I said.

  Ruby nodded. “Anyway, Ramona went out there to look around. The brewmaster took her for a private tour, and bam! She said it was like two magnets clicking together. A week later, she pulled out her checkbook and now she owns a chunk of the business. And you know Ramona. She rolled up her sleeves and began having ideas.”

  “Does this brewmaster own the place?” Buying into a business with somebody you’ve fallen for is not the brightest idea in the world, in my opinion.

  “Half owner, I think. According to Ramona, his wife owns the other half.”

  “Yeah.” I tilted my head. “That’s how it works in a community-property state. What’s ‘ours’ is half mine, half yours. This guy can sell his half, but he can’t sell his wife’s. If they split and the wife keeps her share of the brewery, Ramona may wind up in partnership with her boyfriend’s ex.”

  Ruby made a face. “I wish I could feel good about what my baby sister is doing, China, but I just can’t.”

  Ramona is three years younger than Ruby, which I guess qualifies her to be the baby sister. But as kids, the two of them weren’t especially close, mostly because they are . . . well, different. Sure, they have the same frizzy red hair and freckles, although Ramona is short, a little on the plump side, and highly competitive. And yes, Ramona shares what Ruby calls their “gift,” which they inherited from their Gram Gifford, who inherited it from her mother, who brought it with her from Ireland, along with the red curls and freckles that also seem to run in that family.

  The “gift” is a certain psychic talent that Ruby tries not to use unless she is forced into it. In fact, she goes out of her way to avoid situations where she might be tempted to employ it. I know for a fact that she can quite often hear what people are thinking or connect with their feelings and desires, but that she makes a deliberate effort not to. And that she can occasionally be surprised by a compelling glimpse into the future—or the past—but that this aspect of her gift frightens her, especially when it descends on her unexpectedly. She’s afraid that she’ll get pulled (she says) into something she can’t get out of, like somebody who falls into deep water and can’t swim. She manages to be comfortable and even lighthearted with what she calls parlor tricks, like the readings she does with her Ouija board or the I Ching or the tarot cards. But she always sets limits for herself to keep from getting sucked in.

  Now, I am an educated and logical person (Ruby says I am overeducated and exceedingly left-brained), and when I first began to glimpse her hidden talents, I was more than a little skeptical. But I have seen her in action often enough to know that whatever is going on here, it’s very real. It’s also a huge drain on her physical and psychological resources, so I understand why she’s so respectful of it—afraid, almost. It must be something like being suddenly charged up by an energy surge, and when the power’s turned off, the energy ebbs, leaving her drained and limp. No wonder Ruby avoids it when she can.

  Unfortunately, Ramona doesn’t know how to set limits, and she never seems to be bothered by the kind of energy ebb that Ruby experiences. While she can occasionally tune in to what other people are feeling or thinking, she usually misunderstands it or is careless with the way she uses the information. And when she loses her temper or gets spooked, weirdness happens. Things fly around the room, fall off shelves, or explode, as if a poltergeist is at play.

  Really. I am not making this up. I’ve witnessed it myself, especially when Ramona is excited, nervous, or trying to hide something. Ruby has attempted to work with her sister to help her use her capabilities more responsibly, but Ramona isn’t very cooperative, perhaps because there’s a strong subtext of competition between the two sisters, especially when it comes to their “gift.” Ruby says she suspects that Ramona secretly enjoys surprising and even disturbing people, and that she often does it just to get attention. This seems to me to have become more pronounced after Ramona moved to Pecan Springs and took up temporary residence in Ruby’s guest room.

  But after a couple of months, Ruby began to feel that her sister was taking advantage (it’s easy to feel that way with Ramona), and that if she really wanted a new start, she ought to begin by getting a place of her own. That took a little longer, because it turned out that Ramona enjoyed living with her sister. (In large part, I suspected, because Ruby managed everything and all Ramona had to do was show up for dinner and put the dishes in the dishwasher afterward.)

  Meanwhile, she’s been looking for something she really wanted to do with her life. A “business opportunity,” she says. “A place to watch my money grow.” She certainly has plenty of it, thanks to that liberal divorce settlement. And now, according to Ruby, she’s found a new opportunity—and a new guy into the bargain. Maybe.

  “Tell me about him,” I said. “Are they serious?”

  “She’s serious about him,” Ruby replied slowly. “She says he wants to get married, as soon as he can get unhooked from his current wife.”

  “That’s not a very promising way to get started,” I said. Jumping out of one long-term relationship and into another is not a good idea, to my way of thinking. You can get into some serious trouble that way. “But of course, lots of people do,” I added, wanting to soften my remark.

  “Courting disaster, if you ask me.” Ruby made a little face. “I don’t know much about him, and of course I’m clueless about the beer business. I just wish Ramona would think a little longer before she . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, and I guessed that she was thinking of that “bad feeling” she had about the situation. I eyed her curiously, wondering if she was going to tell me. But after a moment’s hesitation, she decided to keep it to herself. Instead, she said, “She says he’ll be with her at Sheila’s birthday party next month. They’ve promised to bring the beer.”

  Sheila Dawson and Blackie Blackwell live on Hickory Street, the next block over. As a couple, they are especially popular with their neighbors, who like the idea of having the police chief and her ex-sheriff husband li
ving practically next door. At Christmas, Sheila had held a holiday open house for an overflow crowd. Now, Ruby had invited everybody in the neighborhood to a backyard potluck to celebrate Sheila’s birthday.

  “I’ll meet him then, too,” I said. “McQuaid says he’ll be in town that week, so we’ll both be here. I’m bringing salad, right?”

  “Right.” Ruby eyed me. “McQuaid’s been doing a lot of traveling lately, hasn’t he? Where is he this time?”

  “Out in El Paso,” I said, “doing an investigation for Charlie Lipman. McQuaid didn’t give me the details, but I’m sure it’s the standard thing—Charlie asked him to develop a dossier on somebody who’s suing one of his clients.”

  “In other words, dig up all the dirt,” Ruby said, pulling her mouth down. “Look for all the other guy’s human failings so they can be used to discredit him.”

  “You got it.” I grinned wryly. “That’s what PIs do for a living, you know. Dig up dirt that nobody else knows anything about. That’s why they call them private investigators.”

  “But at least that kind of work is safe,” Ruby said, “as opposed to some of the other investigations he might be involved in. Does he tell you what he’s doing?”

  “Not so much, actually.” I shivered, remembering the trip that McQuaid and Blackie had made to Mexico to retrieve a small boy who had been abducted by his mother and taken across the border. That trip had been truly dangerous. I hated to interfere with his professional work, but I had asked him to promise that he wouldn’t take another case that required him to go across the border. And he had agreed.

  “And I don’t ask about what he’s doing,” I added. “I’m just glad to be out of the crime business.”

  It was true. I left the law because I was fed up to here with bad guys, who—as a criminal defense attorney—I had the responsibility of defending. Too many of them were guilty as sin, and when I got them off, I felt a) proud of myself for pulling off an acquittal in a difficult case; and b) guilty for having gotten away with murder—or theft or conspiracy or whatever. I was doing a damn good job, but the job was making me somebody I didn’t want to be. Every year since I bailed out, my hands have felt a little cleaner.

  So since McQuaid hung up his shingle as a private investigator, I have rarely been tempted to get involved. I listen when he feels like telling me about a case he’s working on, and if I’m asked, I may even proffer a helpful suggestion or two based on my past experience with the dark side. But crooks, criminals, and investigations are his business. My business is Thyme and Seasons. Where I’m concerned, plants—and especially herbs—are the good guys.

  Which reminded me of what Ruby and I were supposed to be doing. I finished my muffin, brushed the crumbs off my fingers, and reached for my list. “How about if we go over the workshop and class schedule for the next couple of months? We’re mailing the newsletter later this week, and I want to make sure I haven’t left something out.”

  Ruby opened her laptop and booted it up. “Here’s my calendar,” she said after a minute, turning her laptop around so I could see the monitor. “There’s the class and workshop schedule”—she pointed—“and there are the special events Cass has cooked up for the tearoom. Can you think of anything I’ve left out?”

  I scanned her calendar. Ruby was teaching her regular schedule of tarot, astrology, and meditation classes, plus a class on making and using incense. Over the next two months, I was teaching classes on making herbal liqueurs and cordials, using dye plants, and crafting herbal ointments and salves. Ruby was leading a paint-your-own-teapot workshop, and I was following that up with a workshop on growing and blending your own herbal teas. We were going to be busy.

  “I think that’s everything,” I said, turning her laptop back around. “I’m wondering about the liqueurs class, though. It’s the first time I’ve taught it. I hope we get enough people to make it worth the time I’m putting into the prep.” Since most liqueurs have to be aged for at least a month, I had already invested quite a few hours in those I planned to offer for tasting, and there was more work yet to be done.

  “I don’t think enrollment will be a problem,” Ruby said confidently. “Since this is the first time you’ve offered it, you’ll have a good turnout.” She frowned. “I hope you’re going to include some nonalcoholic drinks, as well, though. Lots of our friends are teetotalers.”

  “I’ve been thinking of that. Some of the liqueurs can also be made with vinegar instead of grain alcohol. They’re called shrubs. Back in the day, before soft drinks, shrubs were a favorite family treat. I think people will enjoy learning how to make them. And I’m following up with a class on herb teas. Lots of botanical drinkables.”

  “Sounds good,” Ruby said. “If you think the calendar is more or less okay, how about if I send you the file right now? That way, you can just copy it into the newsletter, add whatever Cass gives you, and you’re good to go.”

  “Super.” I booted up my laptop, and a few moments later I was watching Ruby’s calendar file land in my inbox, as if by magic.

  At that moment, Ruby’s cell phone buzzed and she picked it up. She listened, then smiled happily. “Of course, Amy. Why don’t you bring her over right now, instead of waiting until after lunch? After China and I are finished, I’m going to the shop to do some restocking, and Grace can come with me.” She listened again, said, “See you then, sweetie,” and clicked off the phone.

  “Babysitting today?” I asked with a smile. I’ve never been a huge fan of little kids, but Grace is a charmer. And Amy is finally growing up and settling down. Grace—and Kate, too—are good for her.

  Ruby put down her phone. “Yes,” she said, fluffing her hair with her fingers. “I love Mondays. That’s when I get to be Grandma.”

  I looked at her in her Aztec leggings, purple tunic, and mop of frizzy red hair. I shook my head. Grandmas are getting wilder all the time.

  Chapter Two

  Most of us view henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) as a nuisance garden weed and its common name, henbit, reminds us that it is a favorite of chickens. A member of the mint family, it is also called “dead nettle.” But this edible herb—raw or cooked, it tastes like a peppery spinach—is packed with vitamins, iron, and antioxidants, and it’s been on the dinner menu for centuries. John Gerard describes it in his famous 1597 The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes:

  The floures are baked with sugar as Roses are, which is called Sugar roses: as also the distilled water of them, which is used to make the heart merry, to make a good colour in the face, and to refresh the vitall spirits.

  And Margaret Grieve, in her A Modern Herbal (1931) describes its medicinal properties:

  The whole plant [henbit] is of an astringent nature, and in herbal medicine is considered of use for arresting hemorrhages, as in spitting of blood and dysentery. Cotton-wool, dipped in a tincture of the fresh herb, is efficacious in staunching bleeding and a homoeopathic tincture prepared from the flowers is used for internal bleeding.

  China Bayles

  “Wild Weeds That Are Good for Us”

  Pecan Springs Enterprise

  The shops are closed on Mondays, yes, but that doesn’t mean we have the day off. It was just ten when Ruby and I wrapped up our planning session. I climbed into my white Toyota and headed for Thyme and Seasons, where I planned to meet the members of the local herb guild who volunteer to help me maintain the gardens around the shop.

  It was a perfect morning for outdoor work anywhere in the Hill Country. The weather report had promised an afternoon in the upper seventies, and the morning clouds had already given way to blue skies and April sunshine. In the medians and along the curbs, oleander and Texas mountain laurels (the “grape Kool-Aid tree”) were blooming, surrounded by bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, and wine cups. In people’s neat yards, fire-red tulips, gold and purple and white iris, and red and orange poppies were in full bloom, as were purple wisteria
and some late bright yellow forsythia and bridal wreath spirea. Color, color, everywhere I looked.

  Thyme and Seasons is situated in a century-old two-story building a couple of blocks east of the town square, on Crockett Street. Pecan Springs was established in the late 1840s by German immigrants who came to America because they had run out of land at home and understood that there was plenty of it—empty, too—on the other side of the Atlantic. The colonists arrived by ship at Galveston and drove horses and wagons overland to the hills of the Edwards Plateau. For safety, they traveled in well-armed groups, which was smart, considering that the land wasn’t really empty. The local Native American residents were understandably uneasy when they saw these foreigners—most of them ill-equipped and ill-prepared for survival—moving into the neighborhood.

  But the colonists’ persistence and firepower made up for their lack of know-how, and over the next several decades, the Native Americans were forced to give way, as they were everywhere else in the country. Settlers built their first houses out of cypress logs. But as time went on, the German stonemasons began building more permanently, with square-cut blocks of light-colored native limestone. The old stone building that houses Thyme and Seasons and the Crystal Cave is a relic of that period, with its pine floors and beamed wooden ceilings.

  When I first bought the place, it was surrounded by wide green swaths of Bermuda grass that required frequent irrigation. Over time, I’ve replaced almost all of the lawn with herbal theme gardens: the kitchen garden, with the usual culinary mix of parsley, sage, thyme, mint, savory, and so on; the fragrance garden, filled with roses, nicotiana, sweet peas, lavender, and rosemary; the astrologer’s garden, with a traditional herb for every sign of the zodiac; the dyer’s garden, with coreopsis, tansy, Turk’s cap, yarrow, and a prickly pear cactus; and the apothecary garden. Stepping-stone paths border the various gardens, and there’s a lovely stone fountain that provides drinking and bathing facilities for all the birds in the neighborhood.