Blood Orange: A China Bayles Mystery Read online

  Standing there, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. There are two tall gates in the five-foot-high cedar fence that surround the deck: the one on the garden side that I had used to enter the cottage, the other to the alley. Both gates have a heavy-duty sliding bolt latch on the inside, low enough so that somebody can’t reach an arm over the top, slide the bolt back, and unlatch the gate. The garden gate was unlatched, as I had left it when I entered earlier. But the alley gate was unlatched, too. Which meant that Kelly could have gone out—or been taken out—that way.

  I opened the gate and stepped down into the alley. The garbage can was lying on its side a couple of yards away, empty, a sure clue that the garbage truck had already made its pickup. I was setting it upright and restoring its lid when I heard a dry cough and turned to see Mr. Cowan coming through his back gate with his Peke, Miss Lula, who looks like an animated brown dust mop with a scrunched-up doggy face.

  Miss Lula glared at me. The two of us are not on the best of terms just now. She and Mr. Cowan were taking a shortcut through my garden a couple of weeks ago when Miss Lula was possessed of a sudden dislike for a customer’s miniature poodle, who defended herself and her mistress fiercely. It took three humans to separate those two little dogs.

  Mr. Cowan—stooped, grizzled, just to the north of ninety—has staked out his position in the neighborhood watch program. He’s a “window watcher.” When he’s not out patrolling the block in front of his house or the alley in back (with the devoted Miss Lula on a pink leather leash), he spends hours looking out the window, watching for stray kids, loose dogs, suspicious loiterers, and the like. He keeps pencil notes on these street-side happenings on yellow legal pads. I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a twenty-four-hour voyeur, but since he’s an insomniac, he’s often on duty at night, as well. Window watching is his hobby. Nothing—absolutely nothing—escapes his notice.

  Which he proved once again by saying, in his scratchy old voice, “See you had the p’lice over at your place this morning, Miz McQuaid.” He fully understands that I have kept my own name, but he refuses to believe it’s legitimate. Married women wear their husband’s names, and that’s that.

  I like the old man, in spite of his stubborn irascibility. “So I did,” I said cheerfully, and asked him a leading question. “How’d you know?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Squad car was parked on my side of the alley. Miss Lula was out in the backyard bird-watchin’ and reported it.”

  “Ah,” I said, and understood immediately what had happened. When Charlie Lipman arrived, he parked his truck on the gravel apron next to Kelly’s blue Kia. Which meant that the police officer had parked in the alley, which has “sides” only in Mr. Cowan’s imagination. And of course Miss Lula reported it. She reports everything. At four times the volume you might expect from a toy dog about the size of a football.

  “Next time, you tell the p’lice to park on your side,” Mr. Cowan said. He added, in a mutter, “Don’t see how a slip of a girl like that’un can hope to handle a criminal twice her size. Some big hulkin’ guy is gonna make mincemeat outta that little bit of a thing.”

  I assumed he was referring to the police officer. “I’m sure she learned a few tricks at the academy,” I replied. Miss Lula had caught the scent of Khat on my jeans and was sniffing suspiciously around my calf. Remembering her attack on the innocent poodle, I took two steps sideways. “You didn’t happen to notice anything else that might’ve gone on in the alley this morning, I suppose?”

  “Reckon I did.” Mr. Cowan gave me a superior smile—a good citizen, pleased to share the neighborhood bulletins. “Miz Jenkins, next door on the east, put out her garbage at seven twenty. The garbage truck showed up at seven thirty-two, with them guys whistlin’ and shoutin’ and bangin’ them can lids like they was Gabriel announcin’ the Second Coming. At eight twenty-seven, that girl who’s stayin’ in your stable this week left for work. The Roper twins on the west—”

  “You saw her leave?” I asked excitedly. We had just upped the ante. “My guest, I mean. Did somebody pick her up?”

  The Peke walked purposefully off to the full length of her leash and squatted. “Atta girl, Miss Lula,” Mr. Cowan called approvingly. “Good pee, little lady.”

  He turned back to me, his brow furrowed. “Well, I didn’t ’zactly see her, I reckon. The guy that came to get her pulled his van right up next to the gate in your cedar fence. It had them dark-tinted windows in the back, so I couldn’t see who was doin’ what. But I figured she just climbed right in.”

  I felt my stomach muscles contract. Maybe Kelly had climbed right in, and maybe she hadn’t. The tall cedar gate opened inward and the van had blocked Mr. Cowan’s view. She might have been shoved in, or lifted in. But then again—

  “Anyway,” Mr. Cowan was saying, “all I saw was him, getting in and out. He was a nurse or something. Medic, maybe.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. “That he was a nurse, I mean.”

  “’Cuz he was wearing them blue short-sleeved pajamas I see on nurses over at the hospital, that’s how. The pants got a string holding ’em up instead of a belt.” He shook his head. “Wouldn’t catch me wearin’ pajamas out in public. What do they do when the string breaks?”

  Short-sleeved pajamas. “Oh, scrubs,” I said.

  “I saw your girl getting into her car Saturday,” he went on. “She was wearin’ the same pajama thingies, only orange, so I figured she was a nurse, too. His were blue. Blue bottoms, blue top.” He pushed his lips in and out. “Big, burly guy, he was. Muscles. Dark hair cut short.”

  I exhaled. We were getting somewhere. “Did you notice what kind of van he was driving?”

  “Gray, is all I can tell you. Kinda metallic, maybe.” Mr. Cowan raised his voice. “Miss Lula, why are you diggin’ under Miz Jenkins’ crape myrtle?” He tugged on the dog’s leash. “Get over here, right now, before she sees you.”

  But it was too late. At the back of the house next door, the screen banged open and Mrs. Jenkins came barreling down the steps, swinging a broom. “I’ve told you and told you and told you to keep that fuzz-mop of yours out of my yard!” she yelled. “If that creature digs in my herb borders again, I am going to—”

  “Sorry, Miz Jenkins,” Mr. Cowan called hastily. “Miss Lula promises to be good.”

  “I don’t want promises, Mr. Cowan,” Mrs. Jenkins cried. “I want action.” She went back inside and banged the door.

  Mr. Cowan yanked on the leash. “Come on, Miss Lula. We gotta go home.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You didn’t happen to jot down the van’s license plate, did you? And maybe you saw the guy drive up?” I was trying to figure out how he’d gotten into the cottage. The most likely scenario: Kelly knew him, and when he knocked at the door, she simply let him in. Maybe even poured that mug of coffee for him to drink while he waited for her to get ready to go. But go where? Without her purse and cell phone and keys? With her computer but without locking the French doors or calling Charlie to tell him she intended to miss their nine o’clock appointment?

  “No, I didn’t jot down the license plate,” Mr. Cowan parroted. He gave me a withering look. “Just who the blue blazes do you think I am? James Bond?” And tugging Miss Lula behind him, he marched toward his house.

  I stood in the alley for a moment, considering. Unlike Mr. Cowan, who is only an unofficial window watcher, Mrs. Jenkins, who lives in the house next to his on the east, holds an official neighborhood watch position. As the coordinator, she puts up signs, recruits people to the program, and gets everybody together every so often to share ideas for better neighborhood security—a good thing, since it’s a mixed neighborhood of older homes occupied by seniors like Mr. Cowan and Mrs. Jenkins and families with schoolchildren. Pecan Springs is a sweet little town, but no place is crime-free these days. Neighborhood watch is a good way to get people to cooperate on security issues.


  I went up the walk to Mrs. Jenkins’ brick patio. In spite of Miss Lula’s alleged depredations, the colorful border of herbs on both sides of the path was stunning: bright orange nasturtiums, golden calendula, butter-yellow coreopsis, black-eyed Susans, and yellow-gold yarrow, interplanted with parsley, thyme, and garlic chives. On the patio was a potted pineapple sage and several large wooden tubs of miniature citrus trees, none of them more than five feet high: a satsuma mandarin orange, a Meyer lemon, and what I thought was a calamondin orange. All three were heavily loaded with green fruit—citrus doesn’t ripen here in Central Texas until the late fall. But the calamondin (which is valued more as an ornamental plant) was still in flower, and the fragrance of the little white blooms was heavenly. If I stood here and breathed long enough, all my worries would vanish and I would simply melt into a puddle of pure pleasure.

  Mary Beth Jenkins had left her broom behind when she opened the screen door and came down her back porch steps to greet me. We’ve worked together on a couple of neighborhood beautification projects, so we’re on a first-name basis. She is a slender, athletic woman in her sixties, with sharp features and short, boy-cut gray hair. This morning, she was wearing green twill pants and a flower-printed sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up.

  “Sorry for losing my temper,” she said apologetically. “But that dog dug up my chocolate mint the day before yesterday, and I consider that a sacrilege, plain and simple. If she’s not digging in my yard, she’s doing her business under the crape myrtle or—” She stopped, chuckling. “But I’ll bet you’d rather talk about my citrus collection. This isn’t all, you know. On the porch, I have a blood orange and a tangerine. I grew the tangerine from seed.”

  “From seed!” I exclaimed. “Now, that takes patience.” I looked at the miniature trees. “Do you take these indoors in the winter?”

  “I wrap them in an old blanket,” Mary Beth said. “And they go in the garage. The tangerine stays out on the porch, though. It’s fairly cold-hardy.” She paused. “You should try citrus, China. They’re easier than you might think. And there are so many uses for the fruit.” She turned toward the flowering plant and fingered its glossy green leaves. “For example, these little calamondin oranges are almost too bitter to eat, but they make wonderful marmalade. And that blood orange makes the loveliest granita.”

  “I’m tempted,” I admitted. I hate to take on plants that require special cold-weather attention, but those blossoms were an almost sexual experience. And there was that gorgeous pineapple sage. “I wonder,” I said, “if I could harvest some of your pineapple sage. I want to make something nonalcoholic for my class on herbal liqueurs. My pineapple sage got frosted and I’ve had to start over.”

  “Help yourself,” she said, and gestured to her border. “Anything you want, just let me know. As you can see, there’s plenty.” She frowned. “That is, as long as that dreadful little dog leaves the plants alone.”

  “Great. Thanks!” I pulled my attention back to my reason for stopping. “I have a Neighborhood Watch question, Mary Beth. I wondered whether you might have noticed a gray van in the alley this morning.”

  Mary Beth tilted her head. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Mrs. Cutter—three doors down on the other side of the street—has been under the weather for the past couple of weeks, and I came out to gather some flowers for her. Orange and yellow blossoms are always so cheerful, and I thought they might make her feel better. I was just about to go back indoors when I looked up and saw that van stopping.” She pointed. “Right there, in front of your gate.”

  I caught my breath. Blessings on those who pick flowers for the sick—and who look up every now and then while they’re doing it. “Did you get a good look at the driver? Was he alone?”

  “Not a good look, I’d say. He was in a hurry. Got right out of the van and went on in.”

  “He used the back way?” But the gate couldn’t be opened from the alley side. If he went in that way, Kelly must have unlocked the gate for him.

  Mary Beth nodded. “As far as being alone is concerned, I guess he was. I didn’t see anybody else.” She regarded me curiously. “Why? Is something wrong?”

  Since she’d asked, I couldn’t see any reason to make a secret out of what happened. “Because my guest—Kelly Kaufman—has disappeared. When I went into the cottage, it looked like she’d left in a hurry.”

  Mary Beth’s gray eyebrows arched up. “Kelly Kaufman? The girl who works at the hospice?”

  I grew up and worked in Houston, where the only people you know are the ones who have the desk right next to yours or who buy you a drink at happy hour in the bar across the street. So I’m still surprised by the multiple connections that link people who live in small towns.

  “Yes, that’s her,” I said, although I wouldn’t exactly call her a girl. “Do you know her?”

  She nodded. “When my sister was in her last days, Kelly was her hospice nurse. I honestly don’t know how I would have gotten through that terrible time without her. Kelly went above and beyond. That last week, she even stayed all night, several nights in a row, bless her heart.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said. “But Kelly doesn’t work at the hospice now. I understand that she’s over at the Madison Clinic, on Greenbriar.”

  “That’s too bad,” Mary Beth said. “She was a wonderful hospice nurse—so compassionate with my sister, who wasn’t the easiest patient in the world. But now that I know that’s who you’re talking about, I don’t think it’s at all strange that another nurse—that guy in the blue scrubs—came to pick her up. It was probably an emergency call, and Kelly dropped everything else and just went off to do what had to be done. That’s the kind of person she is.”

  “But you didn’t see her get into the vehicle,” I persisted.

  “I couldn’t. The van was in the way. And anyway, I was looking at him.” She chuckled. “Big, burly guy, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, blue scrubs, tattoos on both arms. The kind of nurse you need to handle some of the larger patients. I did hear the other door slam, though. The passenger door, I mean. So I assume that she got in and left with him.”

  My ears had caught a piece of new information. “Tattoos? What kind?” And Mr. Cowan said that the driver had dark hair cut short, not a ponytail. But Mr. Cowan’s eyes were thirty-some years older than Mary Beth’s, and Mary Beth was nearer to the action.

  “I couldn’t tell you,” she said apologetically. “I wasn’t watching that closely. Just . . . tattoos. You know. Snaky blue things.” She stopped. “Wait there, China. I’ve got something for you.”

  A moment later, she was back, carrying a pretty glass bottle tied with a raffia bow. “Orange-rosemary liqueur,” she said. “Made with my mandarin oranges—which is nice, because I know they haven’t been sprayed with a noxious chemical. You can use it as a marinade or in vinaigrette. You can even add it to your iced tea.” She uncapped the bottle. “Sniff.”

  I sniffed. It had a lovely citrus scent, with an unmistakable hint of rosemary. “Luscious,” I said, taking the bottle. “If you’re willing to share your recipe, I could add this to the tasting table for my class on herbal liqueurs.”

  “I’d love to.” She smiled. “And I wouldn’t worry about Kelly, if I were you. That girl is smart and strong. Whatever she’s doing, I’m sure she can take care of herself.”

  I just wished I shared her optimism. I kept thinking about that big guy with muscles and a ponytail. And snaky blue tattoos. Yes, I was worrying about Kelly Kaufman. And not just because she was a guest in my B&B. I was worried about her because I didn’t think she was the sort of person to skip out on an appointment with Charlie Lipman—probably about her divorce—without letting him know.

  And because I really couldn’t believe that she would leave three hundred dollars and her cell phone in an open purse on the dresser and forget to lock the door.

  Chapter Four
/>   In the early 1990s, a gardener in Moorpark, California, was startled when she saw something very unusual on her favorite Valencia orange tree. The oranges on one limb of the tree were reddish and the fruit was blood red. A local farm advisor clued her in. Her Valencia orange had repeated a mutation that first occurred in China, where blood oranges made their first appearance centuries ago.

  Traditional Chinese herbalists used oranges to treat the digestive and respiratory systems: improve digestion, relieve intestinal gas and bloating, and reduce phlegm. But the medicinal orange came into its own in the west in 1747, when a ship’s doctor in the British Royal Navy discovered that oranges (and other citrus fruits) prevented scurvy in sailors on long sea voyages. Now, we know that oranges are high in vitamin C, and that citrus flavonoids are potentially antioxidant, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory.

  China Bayles

  “Oranges in Your Garden”

  Pecan Springs Enterprise

  I phoned Charlie’s office, got his answering machine, and related the gist of my conversations with Mr. Cowan and Mary Beth Jenkins. At the end, I added, “I’m assuming that Kelly Kaufman is your client, so I’m leaving it to you to decide whether to pass this new information along to the police.”

  I paused. Of course, while we now had more information about how Kelly might have left the cottage, it was possible that she had gone under her own steam, on perfectly legitimate business—on an emergency nursing call, as Mary Beth had suggested. I didn’t think so, given the purse she’d left behind and the Reeboks and the unlocked doors. Was there enough to persuade Charlie to make a call to the cops? Probably not—as I said, lawyers hate to say “client” and “cop” in the same sentence. But I might, if Kelly didn’t show up by this afternoon.

  It wasn’t just Kelly that was bothering me, though. There were two heavy-duty problems circling warily in my mind like a pair of supersized sumo wrestlers, and there was nothing I could do to make them put on some clothes and go for a latte grande. But I might be able to get rid of them if I got busy, and there is always plenty to do around the shop.